Facts around Better Lighting

The knowledge about the benefits of better lighting has increased strongly in recent years. Below are some facts about what better lighting can do for you in your private and professional environment.

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The potential of Better Lighting in the Digital World

Digitalisation means both LED technology that results in better lighting and digital components offering additional functionalities. Find out more about smart lighting solutions.

Significant energy savings: Buildings are the single largest energy consumers in Europe. Around 40% of the energy consumed in Europe is used in buildings. In Europe the maximum total annual electricity savings for optimised lighting system designs with controls (depending on the reference light source scenario) are.

2016Preparatory_study_on_lighting_systemsTasks0_4_7final2.pdf:

  • 20-29 TWh/year in 2030
  • 48-56 TWh/year in 2050

How smart is your building? Simply put, a building smartness indicator is a certificate or label that shows to what extent a building has implemented smart solutions. This certificate can encompass everything from basic controls to data-enabled smart solutions and all the way up to fully integrated systems that allow for individual settings.

Energy efficiency and more: A building smartness indicator will support the reduction of energy consumption throughout a building’s lifetime. However, in addition to energy efficiency, a smartness indicator can also address building optimisation and the well-being and performance of its occupants.

Get the most from your smartness indicator: To get the most out of a building smartness indicator, one should:
• Place data-generating sensors to optimise the use of building’s space, resulting in lower utility bills and better uptake by users.
• Integrate the lighting management system with the building’s other technical systems to create a more productive working environment.
• Reduce environmental impact while also working to increase their own well-being. • Smart connected emergency lighting allows for on-line system monitoring – essential to maximising safety.

97% of buildings in the EU need to be upgraded > BPIE - Buildings Performance Institute Europe

Energy Savings in Healthy Buildings

Healthy buildings are not only energy efficient but also improve the well-being of their occupants. Higher well-being also improves efficient use of energy, as occupant productivity will be higher, giving more output per unit of energy. Find out more about how lighting contributes to both.

How smart is your building? A building smartness indicator is a rating that shows to what extent a building has implemented smart solutions. This can encompass everything from basic controls to data-enabled smart solutions and all the way up to fully integrated systems that allow for individual settings.

Energy efficiency and more: A building smartness indicator will support the reduction of energy consumption throughout a building’s lifetime. However, in addition to energy efficiency, a smartness indicator can also address building optimisation and the well-being and performance of its occupants. This can include how accessible and easy to use are any controls, allowing occupants to tailor their space to the needs of their task.

Get the most from your smartness indicator: To optimise and understand a building smartness indicator, one should:
• Place data-generating sensors to optimise the use of building’s space, resulting in lower utility bills and better uptake by users.
• Integrate the lighting management system with the building’s other technical systems to create a more productive working environment.
•Have individualised flexibility across all building systems, which will enable occupants to help reduce the building’s environmental impact, while also working to increase their own well-being.
•Smart connected emergency lighting allows for online system monitoring – essential for maximising safety.

Big benefits: Proper use of a building smartness indicator will result in the reduction of business operating costs, along with an increase in the value of the property and the general stock of the Healthy Buildings market.

http://ecodesign-lightingsystems.eu/introduction

More than the bottom line: Renovating a building to include Human Centric Lighting will improve the comfort of the building’s interior, resulting in improved health, well-being, and productivity of the occupants inside, increasing the building’s overall value.

Better Lighting benefits all Ages and Patients

Lighting is key to age-friendly environments and improves the recovery of people in hospitals and quality of life in elderly homes. In turn, this can help care staff, reducing job stress and increasing effectiveness in their tasks. Learn more from the latest studies.

Positive Developments for Alzheimer’s patients: A new study by the Lighting Research Centre suggests that using lighting to mimic natural day-night patterns could improve sleep and mood for patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Regulating light exposure: The study used lighting designed to stimulate a patient’s circadian rhythm, the system that regulates our sleep and wake cycles. Nursing home residents are often exposed to varying levels of electric light in the different areas of the residence and throughout the day and night. Their circadian rhythms can be easily disrupted if lighting is not correct and this will harm the capacity of the resident to be awake during the day and to sleep during the night.

By the numbers: The study tested the lighting intervention on 43 nursing home residents for four weeks and another 37 residents for six months. Depending upon where the patient spent most of their time, the tailored lighting included either a custom-designed LED table light or individual room lighting. Personal light meters monitored each patient’s level of exposure.

Reducing disturbances and depression: Researchers saw a significant decrease in sleep disturbances, depression and agitation – all leading effects of institutionalisation. Specifically, after four weeks, reported levels of sleep disturbances and depression had declined significantly. By the end of six months, sleep disturbances were cut in half, and depression scores were less than half of baseline levels.

See the American Academy of Sleep Medicine: Lighting intervention improves sleep and mood for Alzheimer's patients - American Academy of Sleep Medicine – Association for Sleep Clinicians and Researchers

Circadian lights benefit nurses. Aarhus University Hospital and Copenhagen University Hospital, in conjunction with Chromaviso, ran a pilot programme using specially-tuned circadian lights. At night, these lights removed blue wavelengths to create an amber hue. In comparison to those working under the conventional white lights, the 26 nurses working under the new lights reported a better quality of sleep. #BetterLighting #BetterLife

Circadian lighting for a better sleep. The nurses kept diaries about how they felt and responded to a questionnaire. According to this information, researchers concluded that nurses who are exposed to circadian lighting tend to fall asleep more easily and report that their sleep is calmer. They also find it easier to wake up after sleep and feel more rested after three days spent in circadian lighting as opposed to traditional lighting. #BetterLighting #BetterLife

Lighting is key to age-friendly environments. By adjusting the lighting in the office and the home to individuals’ needs, we create comfortable environments for all ages that can evolve and adjust to each person’s needs.

Better Lighting and the Economy

The macro-economic benefit of better lighting is becoming more evident in recent studies. Find out more about the benefits of better lighting in the professional environment.

Feel the rhythm:Research shows that light has a substantial impact on our mood, energy, alertness, and ability to focus. This is because our body’s circadian rhythm, or internal clock, is triggered by morning light, producing the hormones we need throughout the day. As a result, we often feel full of energy on a sunny day and more ready to sleep that night.

Sustainable & Healthier Workplaces | CBRE Netherlands

Human Centric Lighting (HCL) is a step-change in lighting solutions. As such, it requires new skills. In addition to engineers, physicists and designers. HCL also requires health consultants, integrators, engineers and psychologists – among others. In other words, HCL means job creation.

Human Centric Lighting is good for the economy: It is estimated that, by 2030, the global HCL market will be worth up to EUR 20 billion. In Europe, this represents a significant part of the European lighting market and between 20-25 % of its high-end segment. It will also result in the creation of direct, indirect and induced jobs.

Global Human Centric Lighting Market

With an employment multiplier of 2.91, every new HCL job will result in the creation of 2.91 jobs – for an estimate of 10,000 new jobs for Europeans. This aside from multiple benefits it will create for people and business in its application.

Human Centric Lighting - SSLerate - D3.6 part 2 - v3

People learn better under good lighting: Light impacts more than just our ability to see – it also affects our alertness, cognitive performance, emotions and sleep/wake cycle. This is why we need bright white light in the classroom that mimics sunlight to increase alertness and activity during the day, and darkness at night for a good night of sleep.

http://www.ecodesignconsultants.co.uk/healthy-buildings

Benefits from Better Lighting in the Workplace beyond Risk Prevention

Better lighting in the workplace helps people feel and work better. Below are some facts about what better lighting can do for you in your professional environment.

Good for the mind, body and soul: Good lighting supports good all-round health. Light affects our vision, safety and orientation. It also affects the body, influencing our alertness, cognitive performance and sleep/wake cycle. Light even affects our emotions, changing our moods, giving us energy, helping us relax.

Your brain and light: The brain regulates our body’s circadian rhythm based on cues it gets from light. Our reaction depends on; the time of day, the intensity, direction, the colour of the light, and the amount perceived – all of which impact the synchronisation of our body clock with the daylight, helping us to be fully awake during the day and sleep deeply at night affecting our capacities, mood, and overall well-being. It is important to receive the right light for our activities, at the right place, at the right time.

Better Lighting and the needs of Children

Children have a different circadian rhythm compared to adults. Learn about the specific benefits of better lighting in schools.

Welcome to Malmö: To keep up with its fast-growing population, Malmö needed to build 35 new schools. Knowing that topnotch education is crucial to the city’s success, Malmö intended to build the state-of-the-art schools its multicultural population deserves.

A bright idea: Seeing that the old lighting used in existing schools was inefficient, Malmö decided to include Human Centric Lighting in the design of the new schools. To make the classrooms more attractive and more conductive to learning, the new system allows users to change both the illumination level and colour temperature (warm or cold) of the lights, adapting it to the activities and to the moment of the day.

The details: The system uses recessed panels fitted with LEDs. The panels can change intensity and colour temperature (from 2,700K to 6,500K), either automatically or manually.

Kid approved: Not only has the Swedish Parents Association given the new lighting system the thumbs up, but the students have too. They note that the new lights help them stay focused and awake.

Universally understood. It is universally understood that light is essential to the human condition. However, the quality of light varies substantially, both in nature and in controlled environments. To better understand how the quality of light affects our sleep, mood, focus, motivation, concentration, and performance, research has examined such lighting variables as colour temperature and illumination.

Human Centric Lighting. The result of this research is the creation of Human Centric Lighting (HCL). Through dynamic lighting technology that allows us to adjust lighting conditions for the needs of the person performing the task, HCL helps improve our sleep, mood, focus, motivation, concentration, and performance.

Good for learning. In one study, 84 third graders were exposed to either focused (6000K – 1000 lux average maintained) or normal lighting. Those using focused lighting saw a higher percentage increase in oral reading fluency (36%) than those using controlled lighting (17%).