Connected Lighting: one of the hidden gems of sustainable tech
In 2019, the famous biologist, environmentalist and television producer Sir David Attenborough presented his acclaimed documentary series ‘Climate Change – The Facts’ to the world. It became an eyeopener for many people and stirred up the international debate about the need for affirmative action. In Attenborough’s words, climate change is ‘our greatest threat in thousands of years’. The documentary features numerous experts, explaining the severe consequences of rising CO2-levels on ice caps, coastal regions, weather and wildlife and on society in general.
Obviously, Attenborough did not present the first – nor the last- impactful ‘call to action’. But it did have one big advantage: unlike most scientific studies or reports, the very urgent and even disturbing message was brought in a non-filtered and easy to comprehend way, which undoubtedly increased the impact. Recently, large-scale and extremely damaging events such as bushfires have pushed climate change to the forefront of many people’s minds.
The good news is, that an ever-increasing number of companies across the globe has made it their mission to have a positive impact on society and the environment, for instance by significantly reducing their carbon footprint. They are in an ongoing process of looking for ways to adapt or even transform their businesses. Obviously, (sustainable) technology plays a huge role in these efforts.
For companies who are aiming to reduce their impact on the environment, there is usually quite a number of possibilities (and of course challenges) to make a change. Obvious ones are – for example – the purchasing of more sustainable raw materials, limiting business travel, the use of electric vehicles and a more efficient production process. But in addition to these more obvious ‘buttons to push’ there are also – high-tech – solutions that are not as well-known, but just as (or even more) impactful. One of these ‘hidden gems of sustainable tech’ is connected lighting.
For years, reality has been – and this has also been our personal experience – that lighting (of a company’s production facilities, offices and warehouses) is not considered a priority when it comes to energy savings. To put it mildly. However, that reality is changing rapidly, as more and more organizations are actually experiencing the huge potential of having an intelligent, – connected! – lighting platform to efficiently manage and optimize the use of LED lighting.
In 2019, McKinsey identified 9 technological innovations with a large impact on the sustainability agenda. One of them is LED light efficiency. According to the leading consultancy firm, using LED technology can make a considerable difference for a lot of companies. It can actually reduce energy consumption by 40% and LED products that are enabled with connected lighting systems could stretch the overall savings potential by 25%. Speaking of impact.
Stay tuned!
