The ILP has developed a new draft Strategy 2030 as a route map for the industry and Institution for the next four years. We’re now looking for your views as members, so please get involved.
By Justin Blades
In last month’s edition of Lighting Journal, ILP President Michala Medcalf outlined how the Board’s annual strategic ‘awayday’ in July enabled us to reflect on Strategy 2026 and, as importantly, consider ‘where next?’.
From those important discussions, I am pleased to be able to say that our Strategy 2030 is now firmly taking shape.
As the name suggests, Strategy 2030 is about us – you as individual members and the Institution more widely – working within a strategic framework, a road map if you will, of our priorities for the next four years.
This of course doesn’t mean they will be our only priorities during this time – unexpected events, challenges and opportunities will I am sure arise that we will need to be agile and responsive to.
But they will nevertheless work as markers in the sand, as it were, that we can work towards, prioritise in terms of what we do and focus on, and, hopefully, surpass.
FIVE ‘SIPS’
Strategy 2030, much as Strategy 2026 was, is based around five ‘strategic implementation projects’ or SIPs.
A SIP, for those unaware, is a clearly defined change project that includes an articulated objective or destination, a named owner or team (normally a Board member or trustee), a project charter, and any cross project links or synergies clearly mapped out.
For Strategy 2030 the five proposed SIPs are: Pathways into Lighting; the Industry Partner Recognition Scheme (IPRS); Equality, Diversity and Inclusion; Sustainability and the Environment; and Innovation and Technology.
In this article, I will now outline our thinking, and direction of travel, on all five. Before I get into the ‘weeds’ of the detail, however, Pathways into Lighting and the IPRS will I hope already be familiar to many of you.
That is because these were both SIPs within Strategy 2026. However, because they have both been such big and complex projects – and indeed pivotal to the future of both the industry and the Institution – neither of them is ‘job done’ and so they have been refreshed and folded into the new four-year strategy.
To that end, Strategy 2030 is an evolution rather than a total reset. The further point to make here is that this is part of a wider consultation and engagement process with all our stakeholders, including of course you as individual members.
Throughout the autumn we will be proactively going out to explain our thinking around the SIPs and taking on board feedback and suggestions. The whole point is that this will be a very open and transparent process for everyone.
Moreover, as I will reiterate at the end, your Institution now very much needs you to make your voice heard on your thoughts on these next steps, programmes and priorities for the ILP. The intention, however, is that this strategy will go ‘live’ from early in 2027.
SIP 1 – PATHWAYS INTO LIGHTING
Pathways into Lighting continues to be ‘owned’ and led by Past President Perry Hazell, who has been co-opted on to the Board for an extra year to allow him to continue the amazing work he and his project team have done in this area over the past five years, as SIP4 of Strategy 2026.
Achievements here include embedding Project Light Ville into the syllabuses of UTCs (University Technical Colleges); the similar work he’s done with the Engineering Education Scheme Wales; and – most recently – agreeing a tie-up with virtual work experience platform Springpod.
Next steps include ensuring that if organisations want assistance in developing new talent pipelines for the lighting industry, these are readily available, and articulated, that there are resources and pathways available for them to follow and build upon.
These could be STEM and careers outreach materials, apprenticeships, work experience and mentoring as well as industry partnerships (which is where this SIP will overlap with the IPRS, as I will shortly come to), learning volunteers and STEM ambassadors.
There will also be a renewed focus on aligning the work done with the UTCs and their courses with our own membership and registration offers.
SIP 2 – INDUSTRY PARTNER RECOGNITION SCHEME
This, too, is a SIP that has carried over from Strategy 2026 into Strategy 2030. During Strategy 2026 this SIP was led by Michala Medcalf but, for obvious reasons given that she is now ILP President and so already has a lot on her plate, it will for Strategy 2030 be led by Past President Anthony Smith, I am sure very ably as it is something he is passionate about.
The shorthand way to think about the IPRS is as a corporate equivalent to what we already do with qualified membership for individuals. So it is not just ‘pay and join a club’, it includes an assessment of what good lighting corporate citizenship should look like. Employers will be encouraged to demonstrate their commitment to professional standards in lighting.
The IPRS assessment criteria and framework are being developed to ensure that any employer, regardless of sector or scale, should be able to apply and evidence their recognition.
Key areas of focus here will be developing robust recognition criteria alongside industry partners, developing a fair and consistent assessment and review process, developing a public register and an appropriate badge for recognised organisations, and, finally, ramping up the ongoing engagement to grow and sustain participation in the scheme.
Assessing, testing, developing and delivering assessment topics and targets will be a further key priority area within this SIP.
SIP 3 – EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
This – the first of the new SIPs – is very simply about ensuring lighting is a welcoming and open profession, whatever your background.
And that the ILP within that is, equally, an open and welcoming organisation, that we do all we can to support and encourage individuals to succeed in a career in lighting, regardless of their background.
There is an obvious link back here to the Pathways into Lighting SIP, as it stands to reason that we can only be successful in this area if the pathways into the profession are also firing properly.
This SIP will be led by Peter Raynham, of course our Vice President – Membership, Qualifications and Registration, who did a fantastic job leading the membership SIP in the previous strategy. There will be four key areas of focus, namely, to develop:
• Inclusive membership and progression pathways.
• Robust EDI policy and data and an effective ongoing monitoring framework.
• Accessible events, resources, and communications.
• Enhanced mentoring and peer network support for under-represented groups.
Another key area of focus will be ensuring our membership assessment, recognition and awarding of membership is really, genuinely blind to gender, sexual orientation, race, creed, colour and disability.
Further, there will be a piece of work to be done around understanding and articulating ‘unconscious bias’, including how we report on and benchmark against it. Plus, how or whether events – physical and digital – can be made more inclusive. Plus, finally, whether the ILP as a result needs to widen its base of member communities and networks.
SIP 4 – SUSTAINABILITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
This is about good practice to ensure we can continue to light society without harming the planet – and, in truth, I thought it was one that we should perhaps have included in the previous strategy, especially given the way the impacts of climate change appear to be accelerating.
The project owner for this SIP has still to be confirmed, but the objective underpinning it is clear: to ensure we continue to develop good practice in lighting design, engineering and operation so that society gets the lighting it needs to function, and function well, yet without harming the environment in the process.
Could there, too, be additional new registrations as an alternative or addition to Engineering Council options, such as Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv) offered via the Society for the Environment perhaps? Ones that articulate professional competence and expertise in this area? There will, as with the previous SIP, be four key areas of focus. These are to develop:
• Sustainable lighting design and specification guidance.
• Good practice around energy efficiency and carbon reduction.
• A better understanding of ecological impact and the responsible use of light at night.
• Circular economy-based approaches to lighting equipment and materials.
Finally for this SIP, there will be a priority of elevating environmental responsibility – already something very much central to the ILP’s vision and mission statement – into a dedicated resource SIP, one with its own charter and milestones. So, watch this space!
SIP 5 – INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
This is one of the SIPs that I personally feel most strongly about. As an Institution, at the end of the day, if we are serious about advancing the science and engineering of lighting as a profession, what should be our role in pushing those boundaries?
We’ve had the LED revolution and we of course are now in the AI revolution. So there is an important conversation to be had, I feel, around where should we be going next? How, too, should we assess, define and recognise what ‘good’ and good practice looks like in terms of innovation and technology?
Lighting as an industry increasingly needs to have a position around, especially, AI and its myriad impacts, deployment and use, both positive and potentially negative. What are the profession’s needs in this space in terms of training and competency, in terms of regulation, even accreditation?
This SIP, in outline therefore, is all about us as an Institution developing and sharing guidance and good practice on all and any new technologies (so not just AI of course) relevant to lighting science and engineering. Then to do the same on emerging technologies (which is where AI is likely to sit for the moment) that will change how lighting professionals work and practice in years to come.
This SIP is being led by Jonathon Ayers and will, again, have four key areas of focus. These are to carry out and develop:
• Horizon scanning across lighting and adjacent technologies.
• Technical guidance notes on emerging tools and methods (including the possibility, or likelihood in fact, of a fast-track Guidance Note on AI).
• Practical guidance on AI in lighting design and practice, including potentially future CPD events.
• Skills development to keep members future-ready, and ensure members – and the wider profession – remains so too.
The intention, in summary here, is that this SIP will become a future-looking project of work that keeps the ILP’s technical knowledge base current as both physical and digital science and technology rapidly evolve.
IN CONCLUSION – NEXT STEPS
In conclusion, Project 2030 outlines five SIPs, five project owners and one shared ambition. To deliver this, however, we need you, our members, to step forward and engage.
As I mentioned earlier in this article, we will through the autumn be consulting widely and proactively on Strategy 2030. So please do get involved and feed in!
We are very keen for members to feed back to, feed into, the consultation process. You can do so here at strategy2030@theilp.org
We are keen, too, for members to step forward and volunteer to get involved within our SIP project teams. Or, more widely, to champion 2030 within your organisation.
I am excited about the direction and priorities we have articulated within Strategy 2030, and hope you are too. I look forward now to having these important conversations with you in the coming weeks and months.
Justin Blades is Chief Executive of the ILP
This is an abridged version of the article that appears in the October edition of Lighting Journal. To read the full article, simply click on the page-turner to your right.
Image: Pexels
