The lighting industry is changing fast in order to gear up for net zero – Tim Bowes from Whitecroft Lighting explains how supply chains are cutting embodied carbon
The construction industry is often criticised for its slow pace of change, and for the rigidity of traditional supply chains hindering knowledge and ideas sharing. But the way we work is changing at an exponential rate, influenced by clients prioritising resource efficiency, and reducing their whole life carbon.
This is reshaping supply chains, making them flatter and better connected – creating shortcuts so that M&E manufacturers can more easily collaborate with architects at an earlier stage of a project.
Net zero is sending everyone in the industry back to the drawing board, forcing the supply chain to rethink priorities and revisit past assumptions. M&E sector manufacturers are increasingly being asked to share their expertise at an earlier stage in projects, particularly in markets such as education and healthcare, where their accumulated know-how can have a big impact on sustainability at the design stage. Becoming more involved in projects at an earlier stage means they can also help influence how innovation is deployed to achieve the most effective long-term result for the client.
Architects understand have a key role to play in achieving net zero, placing sustainability at the heart of building designs. Research conducted by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation into the value of the circular economy calculated that 80% of a building’s whole life carbon impact is dictated by its design, fabric and construction.
Although buildings can be made more efficient once they are built, the embodied carbon from permanent structures is ‘lost’ forever.
Clearly for architects this is a complex, multifaceted challenge that requires new forms of technical expertise, imaginative uses of materials, as well as radical new approaches to design and construction.
The challenge of net zero and making better material choices has certainly filtered down to M&E, and questions on the whole-life carbon impact of lighting are now commonplace from clients, consultants and specifiers The issue is now not ‘if’ manufacturers can respond, but ‘how quickly.’
Explaining embodied carbon
Embodied carbon is emitted from the sourcing of virgin materials, the manufacturing of building products, through to the construction process itself, plus the disposal of materials at the end of life, and is a big contributor to climate change – 11% of the total CO2 emitted globally each year.
As we increasingly switch from finite to more sustainable energy sources, combined with ever more energy efficient buildings, the significance of embodied carbon is forced up, in proportion to operational carbon.
On the subject of operational efficiency, the lighting products industry has become very good at reducing energy use and day-to-day emissions. Architects can be secure in the knowledge that once they have settled on a lighting aesthetic, their M&E consultants will specify highly energy-efficient LEDs.
But the factoring in of embodied carbon is now placing more emphasis on design and materials, and the need for lighting to fit consistently with a building’s overall sustainability strategy and whole life impact.
Circular arguments
This new focus on embodied carbon increasingly means adhering to the principles of circularity (prioritising repair, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing and recycling, minimising waste and the use of virgin materials), and this is where architects can benefit from collaboration and earlier engagement.
Circularity is also about demonstrating to clients, investors and the world at large, that the industry is taking a long term approach to minimising waste, and accepting responsibility for the impact that product and materials purchased have on net zero.
Finally, nobody in the industry has all the answers when it comes to net zero, but we should all be taking steps to offer transparency around all types of carbon in buildings, to make it easier for the supply chain to make informed decisions.
We took the decision to begin quantifying the embodied carbon in an increasing number of our solutions (using third party verification), and then ‘crunching’ that data to drive the redesign of some of our products.
As a result, specifiers will increasingly see reusable and replaceable modules being built into various products we offer, with the aim of lengthening their lifespan.
This has enhanced our understanding of the full value of circularity, and created new ways for manufacturers to add value, develop longer-term partnerships, and deliver significant carbon savings.
When you categorise building fabrics, the biggest sources of embodied carbon tend to be the likes of steel and concrete – big, bulky materials containing a relatively small number of ingredients, and makes the majority of a building’s embodied carbon relatively easy to calculate.
Although lighting (and M&E more widely) contribute much less to that total, it can be stubbornly harder to calculate, containing more complicated electrical components, such as circuit boards, drivers and LEDs.
We should remember that the end goal is to minimise the carbon impact of every element of a building, using all the available tools and technologies to hit the lowest achievable point at any given time, and then offsetting the rest.
This is placing more responsibility on manufacturers to not only offer more sustainable options, but demonstrate those carbon savings clearly by using industry recognised standards, such as EPDs.
Our free guide, ‘Shining a Light on Net-Zero’ explains how to balance the demands of reducing whole life carbon of lighting with other priorities, such as health and wellbeing. It is a useful starting point.
Tim Bowes is head of lighting applications at Whitecroft Lighting