Graeme Shaw, Technical Director at Zumtobel Group UK & Ireland, discusses Thorn Lighting’s journey towards climate neutrality by 2025.

Sustainability and climate change will be two of the most significant challenges of the 21st century. As a leading supplier of outdoor and indoor luminaires and integrated controls, Thorn Lighting is committed to achieving climate neutrality by 2025. To track the progress of this goal, we have launched our Sustainability Hub, where you can find updates on our technology, solutions and steps we are taking to reduce our CO₂ emissions. 

We all need to adopt a culture of sustainable decision-making to ensure future generations flourish. To do so, we must find a better balance between the environment, economy and human empowerment. 

As part of the Zumtobel Group, which ranks in the top 3% worldwide for sustainability, we are committed to conducting business in a way that safeguards the planet for future generations. We have signed up to 12 of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals and continue to utilise our expertise in sustainable lighting solutions to protect our planet.  

The Group has been committed to a sustainable future since its founding when Dr Walter Zumtobel successfully combined high quality lighting with low resource and energy consumption for the time. “Through light, we care” is the Group’s guiding principle for all its sustainability activities.  

As a lighting company, we consider it our responsibility to contribute. Therefore, we continue to do our best and utilise our years of know-how in sustainable lighting solutions for a future worth living and protecting our planet. 

Achievements to date 

In the current fiscal year, we reduced over 7,500 tonnes of CO₂ by switching our production sites to green electricity. We have also been committed to transparent reporting and independent assessments. Since 2018, our sustainability activities have been evaluated by the external rating agency EcoVadis. Following the previous silver rating, we achieved a gold award for the first time in 2021. This puts the Group in the top 3% of 75,000 companies worldwide. 

Environmental Product Declarations 

We have also been offering transparency at the product level for the last decade by providing Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) which provide customers with information on the environmental impact of products throughout their entire lifecycle. 

Our plan 

To publicly demonstrate our commitment to operating our business responsibly, we are looking to offer and develop more sustainable products and solutions and find ways to improve our processes to reduce waste, reduce energy consumption and lower carbon emissions. 

This will be achieved by investing in research and development to bring you, our customers and partners, innovative technologies through products and solutions so that you can also reach your own goals when tackling this shared, universal issue. 

Our technology  

One such example is our NightTune Technology. According to a news article published on the International Dark-Sky Association’s website, “Globally, we spend at least $50 billion in energy costs each year to produce light that escapes into space.” 

Not only does waste light negatively impact our dark skies, but artificial light at night can also affect human wellbeing and wildlife.  

Thorn Lighting’s NightTune technology has been designed to limit these negative impacts of artificial light at night. It achieves this by adjusting colour temperatures and outputs depending on the time of night and the surrounding environment. As part of a recent lighting project, we collaborated with Cumbria County Council to install NightTune Technology-integrated dark sky-friendly lighting at sites across the county to protect the dark skies and local wildlife, improving people’s perception of safety, encouraging social interaction and increasing energy efficiency.  

Circular economy  

The Group has integrated “Circular Design Rules” into our development processes to establish circular economy principles. These rules cover aspects along the whole value chain, which are applied to every new product development. The core ideas of the circular economy are further established with workshops and training, and through analysis and exchange with partners, new circular business models are evaluated. 

We are on a journey. Whether providing high quality EPDs, introducing technologies that enable sustainable lighting to protect the dark skies or working with clients to help them increase energy efficiency, our goal is simple: To reduce our CO2 emissions and to be a partner of choice in helping others achieve theirs. 

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