Sustainability

InventWood, a Maryland-based company, is pioneering a revolutionary building material called SUPERWOOD that promises to transform the construction industry by combining exceptional strength with sustainability. Patented in 2018 by Dr. Liangbing Hu, SUPERWOOD is produced by removing certain components of wood’s cellular structure and compressing it, resulting in a material that is up to 12 [...]

Schneider Electric, a global leader in energy management and automation, has set a new industry benchmark by publishing Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for 50,000 of its electrical products, a move widely recognized as a record for the sector. These EPDs, which include lighting and lighting accessories, are now accessible through the One Click LCA platform, [...]

  BS 8887-221:2024 is a new British Standard that provides guidelines for the remanufacturing of luminaires. It is part of the MADE (Manufacture, Assembly, Disassembly, and End-of-life processing) suite of documents and addresses the growing need for sustainable practices in the British lighting industry. It could provide a glimpse at how North American remanufacturing could [...]

  Streetleaf is a Tampa Bay, FL-based startup producing solar streetlights. Earlier this month, they formalized a nationwide partnership with the largest home builder in North America, D.R. Horton. The sustainability story for solar streetlights is pretty well known; like most solar streetlights, Streetleaf operates off the grid using solar power and a battery. Streetleaf [...]

  APPRIME Lighting launched its business in early 2024, and has focused on creating more sustainable luminaires designed for circularity at end of life. Their first two products are an LED troffer and an LED troffer retrofit. Installed, they look similar to most troffers, but inside, both products are designed with a tool-less, replaceable light [...]

  MushLume Lighting biofabricates sustainable lamp shades from hemp and fungus mycelium (the root structure of fungi). The mycelium shades give the appearance of concrete. They even have begun adding colors (see second image below). MushLume describes the process this way, “In just a few days, the mycelium grows, cultivating a thick network of hyphae [...]

  Facility managers are increasingly seeking sustainability solutions for buildings, emphasizing energy efficiency to enhance value. Green financing programs, such as power purchasing agreements (PPA), efficiency service agreements (EaaS and ESA), and property assessed clean energy (PACE) financing, offer opportunities to integrate green technologies like efficient lighting retrofits, solar panels, co-generation, efficient HVAC systems, and [...]

An interesting find at LEDucation, last week was a line of linear luminaires from Lumentruss made from reclaimed pine engineered lumber. It has the appearance of shredded recycled lumber that has been pressed into new lumber. The finished look has an intense grain pattern that is even more pronounced than ‘virgin’ wood. Recycled wood both [...]