Chris Bedford, managing director (MD) of Open Technology, which specialises in providing energy-saving lighting solutions, has said businesses should take the lead when it comes to changing our lighting habits, given that they stand to make arguably the most savings.
In France, legislation is coming into force which will see companies required to switch off all internal lighting an hour after staff have left the building, to extinguish all lights between 01:00 and 07:00 and to see facade and outdoor lighting switched off after 01:00. This will save 250,000 tonnes of emissions every single year - the equivalent that would be produced by 750,000 houses.
While this is being implemented by law - or rather, forcibly - Mr Bedford believes businesses in the UK should follow with similar behaviour, leading by example when it comes to changing our perhaps indulgent lighting habits. Writing for Lux Magazine, he said this is because he does not believe the British government will address this issue with sufficient vigour.
As he says: "Why wait for the legislative push to take responsibility for our lighting?"
He goes on to say that addressing our lighting is "one of the quickest and simplest means of reducing carbon footprints and achieves considerable financial savings at the same time."
While both owners of businesses and domestic properties alike should be looking to reconsider their energy consumption, it is arguably businesses which could gain more from doing so as many are still leaving many lights unnecessarily switched on at night, which is seldom the case for domestic properties.
He has described turning them off as a "no-brainer", but points out that changing human behaviour can be difficult to bring about.
Therefore, he says people should capitalise on modern technology available that can centrally and digitally control systems, 'deciding' when lights are and aren't switched on.
A simple message can then be sent around employees informing them of when lighting will simply switch off automatically and they will be forced to fit around this framework, without much effort on their part.
As Mr Bedford concluded: "Businesses stand to make the biggest savings by taking control of their lights, so with no movement from government, perhaps the impetus should come from there."
