LIA and Goverment devise a Lighting Plan

The UK’s Lighting Industry Association (LIA) and UK government have launched a ‘jointly-prepared’ strategy for the development of the national lighting industry.

The LIA has worked closely with the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills in helping to draft this strategy. They have also included valuable input from a wide variety of stakeholders in the lighting world. This resulted in a lighting plan for the next 15 years.

This is the result of a high demand for lighting, UK 2013 demand for lighting fixtures was £72 billion and sales of LED products are predicted to grow by 20% each year through to 2025. The UK supply chain currently supports 1,700 companies across the lighting sector and is worth £2.3 billion to the economy. The UK is home to more than 140 lighting design practices that specify lighting for mainly overseas projects and also present a unique opportunity for lighting manufacturers to access global markets. The UK lighting industry’s products consume around 18% of all electricity generated in the UK. This shows that good quality, smart lighting controls and energy efficient lighting could reduce this consumption by enough to remove the need to build two new power stations the future. All of these findings were in the LIA Market Report.

The Minister for Business and Energy, Michael Fallon, said about the report:

With the latest technology, it is now not only possible to conserve energy but we also have the opportunity to both reduce maintenance costs and to improve the quality of every aspect of the lit environment. By adopting improved lighting systems, the UK has the opportunity to reduce the cost of energy consumption and thus CO2 production, thereby helping to meet the government’s target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050.

Fallon added:

The lighting sector strategy maps out the future of the industry and points to the partnership between industry and government showing how the industry is likely to evolve and what needs to be done further to help make it a success globally.

COO of the LIA, Peter Hunt, said:

The UK has a number of sector plans for industries such as nuclear power, aeronautics and the motor industry so it is gratifying that the government recognizes the potential of the lighting industry not only to help this sector meet energy reduction targets but create jobs, growth and exports. The preparation of this document [the lighting strategy] is just the very beginning but the hard work starts now in turning this strategy into deliverable actions both from the industry and government. We have the support of government but the success of this strategy will depend on the buy-in from industry to make it work.

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