The ILP’s ‘Tria Luminaria’ event in January brought together the YLP, WLP and ILP London for the first time – and nothing less than how lighting can help save the planet was on the agenda
No one expects saving the planet will be easy. For young lighting professionals it is going to mean walking an immensely tricky tightrope of being advocates and leaders for the industry being at the forefront of mitigating climate change, while also – as often relatively junior members of organisations – being brave enough to pipe up in a contract or project meeting, ‘er, are we sure we really need to be lighting this?’.
This kind of hear-a-pin-drop scenario for the next generation of lighters – yet one also potentially increasingly likely – was highlighted during January’s ground-breaking ‘Tria Luminaria’ ILP event.
The event, which brought together members from the WLP, YLP and ILP London under one roof for the first time, was focused on the challenges, and possible opportunities, for lighting as sustainability, the circular economy and accelerating climate change all race up the business agenda. It was held at the offices of Introba in London
With the event taking place in the wake of the devastating Los Angeles fires, and just ahead of both Storm Eowyn and Herminia battering the UK – with in fact the heavens opening violently during the day – how our climate is already changing and becoming more volatile was very much uppermost in people’s minds.
The event saw presentations take place from Lawrence Baynham of INDO, Anjali Sawal of WSP, Introba’s Kimberly Bartlett as Chair of the WLP, Clare Thomas from Urbis Schréder and Lighting Journal’s Nic Paton – and see the panel at the end for more on these. It then concluded with a panel discussion that brought together Kimberly, Lawrence, Clare and the YLP’s Katerina Xynogala, of WSP, and which tried to tease out some of the key future-facing climate-change challenges facing the industry, with Nic chairing the discussion.
And it was the question of how – or even if – young lighters can accelerate and lead change when it comes to lighting and sustainability that started the debate. ‘As Anjali said, the younger generation of lighters are going to be future of lighting; they will be the one picking up the pieces as climate change accelerates. What is it that younger lighters need to do to be driving this agenda forward, and maybe even getting older generations of lighters to listen?’ Nic asked the panel.
‘When you ask a question like that, the first thing that comes to my mind is that the young lighters have to be the ones who lead by example. But there is a confidence issue – and that is where it can just fall on its face,’ Kimberly pointed out, adding that it was beholden on lighting organisations to be creating the day-to-day working culture and environment where employees – whatever their seniority – can feel able and confident to be asking these challenging questions.
‘There is this utopian ideal where we can get a point where younger people are willing to stand up and say, “well, actually no, we need to be doing this or that”. But in reality, too often, things are not going to change. For me, that is the biggest hurdle before we even start on anything else,’ she added.
‘People who have been involved in the industry for a number of years often don’t want to question some of the fundamentals, and I think that, for the new generation coming through, is important; to have that confidence to be asking questions about why are we lighting to this level?’ agreed Lawrence. ‘Yes, the standard says x or y but also should we be thinking outside the box? So, it is about asking those questions and challenging the status quo,’ he added.
‘Speaking as somebody who is maybe just a little bit older, we’ve also got a responsibility to create that place within our workplaces,’ emphasised Clare. ‘[Environments] where we can be questioned, and where the team feels free to challenge us; and that can actually be quite a hard step to make.
‘But we have to do it. My cousin lives one block over from where The Palisades fire took place in Los Angeles. When you start thinking about – looking at the storms and weather warnings we’ve been having this winter – it’s already affecting us all anyway. So, we just need to give it a go,’ she added.
Katerina highlighted the progress that has already been made as one positive. ‘I remember having a conversation in 2023, a panel discussion on carbon, where people were talking about TM66 and TM65 and were not sure if they were going to work or make a difference.
‘People coming into the industry now – just two years later – will find that, more or less, they do. Things are progressing; this constant progression will naturally happen,’ she added, before turning to Anjali, who was in the audience for this part of the event.
‘I think it is about engaging with stakeholders and making them understand that there might be more energy efficient models that they could be using,’ Anjali agreed. ‘But, as a young lighting professional, I agree you can feel intimidated to do that. If you’re working in a consultancy, for example, you don’t want to give it a bad reputation by talking to stakeholders in the wrong way, or arguing with what they want.
‘So, I think some guidance from people about how to do that would be brilliant, and just more training or webinars. Plus learning more about sustainability in general so we have more confidence to talk about it,’ Anjali added.
ROLE OF TM66 AND TM65
Lawrence Baynham in his presentation had highlighted the value that metrics and standards such as TM66 and TM65 can bring to the sustainability conversation. But what should – and needs – to come next, Nic asked. ‘Do they go far enough? Is it more metrics we need? What’s the next level we need to be taking sustainability to within lighting?’ he questioned.
‘I think it needs to be an holistic approach to evaluating options; although I do think that is easier said than done,’ Lawrence said in response. ‘A lot of the tools that have come about recently are really important and powerful, but the value of them can be lost if too much energy is focused on one tool rather than all the tools that are available.
‘There are lots of tools out there and so it is about having an understanding and knowledge of when they’re appropriate to use. Because there is often no one right answer,’ he added.
‘We also need to be talking to people who aren’t lighting professionals; we are a bit navel gazing as an industry, to be honest,’ said Clare Thomas. ‘But lighting is the thing that people always have an opinion about, because they can see it, whether it is a good scheme or not.
‘Not everyone will agree whether it is a good scheme or not, but they will always have feelings on it. Really great schemes, people don’t notice – they will notice the crap ones,’ she added.
‘Lighting as an industry, as a thing, is “black magic” to a lot of people,’ agreed Kimberly. ‘You flick a switch and there’s light or you go outside and it’s there. But the average individual doesn’t actually twig what that means. My lived experience may be that I walked outside and I fell over, and I might assume that was because the lighting was rubbish. Not that I fell over because, say, I was drunk. There is always going to be a reason to say, “it’s lighting because….” But there is no actual understanding or background information there,’ she emphasised.
‘Or that the lighting isn’t good enough but actually it’s because the trees around it haven’t been pollarded,’ Clare pointed out. ‘But we have to able to have those conversations.’
SAFETY AND SUSTAINABILITY
This brought the discussion round to the challenges of balance of reducing artificial light at night while also maintaining spaces that are, and feel safe, especially for women.
‘We need other people, not just lighting professionals, to look at the safety of spaces,’ emphasised Lawrence. ‘Because the easy answer, too often, is just “put more lighting on”. If more lighting makes people feel safer or improves their quality of life at night, fine, that is a good use of public funds I’d suggest. But, actually, what are the other ways we can make people feel safer, and safer, that don’t have the intrusive light element? Do we just need to do some vegetation clearing or just make some other changes?’
At this point Mark Cooper, technical business development manager at Ubitricity and in the audience, came into the discussion, highlighting the issue of safety at night and electric vehicle charging.
‘This is a really big topic in the EV industry now: women driving EVs. Women are very comfortable with them – they’re very safe and sustainable cars. But when you go to charging stations, most of them are tucked away at the far end of a car park, out of the way, with no or little lighting. Lots of women are saying, “we don’t want to use these places”,’ he said.
‘You’ve got to sit there for half an hour in the car. So there is a lot of discussion now about how do we make EV sites safer. The first go-to is “we’ll put a light in it”. But then you just create this cone of light and you can’t see outside it. So it is about, is it in the right location in the first place? It is not just about the lighting, it is about thinking about the whole topic,’ he added.
Katerina Xynogala highlighted that current research suggests uniformity is much better for improving perceptions of personal safety than simply raising lighting levels. ‘I think what is important is these conversations are often not “normal”, not part of our day-to-day work. Unless we normalise this as a concept, as something we do as standard within our projects, I don’t know how we’re going to improve things,’ she said.
AI AND ENERGY USE
Nic Paton now turned the discussion to one of the hottest topics within lighting: the role of artificial intelligence (AI). He highlighted how, at October’s Circular Lighting Live event many of the speakers had been extolling the virtues of using AI to improve efficiency, data control and things like inventory and asset management. Yet, AI is also notoriously energy hungry – so is embracing AI as a vehicle to tackle climate rather missing the bigger picture, he asked.
‘AI is great as a reporting tool, and it is a way to very quickly and easily analyse a lot of data. So I do think there is a place for it. But I don’t think it is the be-all and end-all,’ cautioned Katerina.
‘Definitely, it has to be used in the right way,’ agreed Kimberly. ‘And who’s teaching it? And how are we teaching it?’ added Clare.
‘One of the problems, too, is the expectations of it. So pinning hope on it fixing everything. It is a fantastic tool for modelling and understanding things, but it is not going to actually fix things,’ said Lawrence.
Mark Cooper pointed to the potential value – but also dangers – of using AI for processes such as writing tender responses. ‘A lot of the data centres are being pushed down the sustainable energy route; they still have a massive draw on the Grid. A lot of renewable generation is coming online because of the demand of data centres,’ he emphasised.
ROLE OF INDUSTRY BODIES
As the discussion drew to a conclusion, Nic asked the panel for their view on what needed to be the role of lighting industry bodies – including the ILP – in framing, promoting and accelerating this agenda.
‘We need to pull together and lead!’ emphasised Kimberly Bartlett. ‘We need to lead, together, as a single front; we need to make that change by talking to the people who can actually do it on our behalf, be that legislators, engineers, research facilities. We need to come together and say “this needs doing and it needs doing because”. So it is about getting that understanding out there. Unless we do come together as one big, strong voice – and say “this is important, you need to take notice” – nothing is going to change.’
But, the panel and our audience agreed, there was also often a problem of money, budgets, and client expectations to be managed and navigated. The fact, essentially, that someone has already decided that space needs lighting and the job therefore of lighting professionals is simply to make it happen.
Nic then threw out a final question, both to the panel and the audience: ‘How worried should we be? About climate change, future of industry, young lighters not having an industry to come into?’
‘When I think about the situation, 99% the answer is about money,’ said Kimberly. ‘It terrifies me to know that really good opportunities for good lighting design, for amazing places, for safe and healthy streets, for making an amazing place for humanity going forward is all based on, “how much will it cost if I get sued because someone dies”. That is the scary part for me – and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. But it really has to.’
Lawrence Baynham highlighted that, too often, the environmental costs of doing something (or not doing something) are simply not quantified within the decision-making process. ‘It is quite easy to budget based on finances. It is quite difficult to budget based on carbon. Effectively we’ve got an unlimited overdraft on carbon courtesy of future generations,’ he said.
‘In terms of how worried – any challenge, I believe, mankind will address and try to come up with solutions. The question is, have we bitten off more than we can chew? Possibly, only time will tell,’ he added.
‘I’m bizarrely excited,’ said Clare Thomas. ‘The amount of change I have seen in the last 20-odd years. I’m not bored and I don’t know where it’s going, and that’s why I get up in the morning really. We’ve done loads already and yes there is loads more we can do. But it is just about that engagement piece and talking to people who aren’t us, probably. And then having a go and not being afraid at sometimes failing a bit.’
The last word then went to Katerina Xynogala. ‘It is hard to see where the future of the profession as we know it will go. But I am very excited to see how it changes.
‘I am very excited to be in the position I am – working for a consultant – because I have that flexibility to morph my role, to be at the forefront of research and to be thinking about how we can improve things, which I think is very important,’ she said.
This is an abridged version of the article that appears in the March edition of Lighting Journal. To read the full article, simply click on the page-turner to your right.
Image: the Tria Luminaria panel discussion in full flow, by Annabel Brightling
