Earth Day 2024 is a reminder to us all that we need to adopt sustainable design principles. Climate change is top of the agenda, but it’s clear that the time has come for meaningful action.

In the world of lighting design, this means making strides towards circularity as quickly as possible. We need to consider the whole life cycle of design, from the carbon footprint of the manufacturing process itself, through to what happens when a scheme comes to the end of its life. Only then, will we make the move to a circular economy.

It’s a huge mindset shift, but fortunately the lighting community is making a huge effort to move forward as an industry. Cue TM66, anindustry-wide framework published by The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) and the Society of Light and Lighting (SLL), which aims to improve the process of assessing the circularity of luminaires.

TM66 is a big step forward for our industry because the CEAM assessment tools in the memorandum allow lighting designers to interrogate manufacturing processes. Armed with this information, we are much better informed about how luminaires perform in the context of the circular economy.

For more information about the TM66 Creating a Circular Economy in the Lighting Industry memorandum, visit CIBSE’s website by clicking on the following link: https://www.cibse.org/policy-insight/news/tm66-creating-a-circular-economy-in-the-lighting-industry-now-available