Light + Health

The Illuminating Engineering Society has issued a position statement, PS-12-19, responding to UL RP 24480 regarding circadian lighting.

In this week’s featured episode of the Get a Grip on Lighting podcast, hosts Greg Ehrich, LC, former President of NAILD and owner of Premier Lighting, and Michael Colligan, an entrepreneur and inventor, talk to Adam Lilien, Lighting Business Development Manager for UL, about UL’s initiative to develop a new recommended best practice for circadian lighting.

The International Commission on Illumination (CIE) has issued a new position statement that puts into context the use of the term “blue light hazard” in line with the CIE’s current position on this term. It provides reassurance that people are normally not at risk of exceeding the internationally agreed blue light hazard exposure limits from white light sources used for illumination.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Mark D’Ambrosio, Senior Project Engineer – New Technology Strategy, Focal Point on the topic of how lighting fits into the WELL Building Standard. The interview informed an article I wrote for tED Magazine’s September 2019 issue. Here’s the transcript.

While the international lighting community does not yet know enough to prescribe a certain type of electric lighting to meet the specific needs of specific individuals, enough has been learned in the past few years “to make a difference in people’s lives,” the Lighting Research Center’s Dr. Mariana G. Figueiro said at the “Prescription Lighting” discussion panel convened at the National Lighting Bureau’s 7th Annual Lighting Forum.

Morgan Pattison, principal of SSLS, Inc., senior technical advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solid-State Lighting Program, and lead author of DOE’s Solid State Lighting R&D Plan, recently contributed an article to LD+A Magazine stating the majority of lighting/health research has been in laboratory conditions. For real progress to be made in developing best practices, more field research is needed.

Acuity Brands, Inc. has announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with CIRCADIAN ZircLight, Inc. The new business partnership includes licensing of CIRCADIAN ZircLight intellectual property, and a collaboration intended to accelerate commercialization within North America of CIRCADIAN’s Zirc branded technology through Acuity Brands’ portfolio of indoor luminaires.

In this week’s featured episode of NAILD’s Get a Grip on Lighting podcast, Dr. Jennifer Veitch talks about what we know about lighting’s effect on human well being.

The Illuminating Engineering Society recently published TM-18-18, which describes the mechanisms involved when optical radiation signals are converted into neural signals for vision and other body functions.