Architect on Circular Design: 'Rethinking How Products Fit'
"Circular design isn’t just about recycling; it’s about rethinking how products fit into the material flows of buildings from day one," noted an architect in a discussion on circular futures in design. The comment underscores the need for a holistic, lifecycle-based approach to product design and material selection, rather than focusing solely on end-of-life recycling.
- A key metric in circular lighting is outlined in the CIBSE TM66 standard, which provides a framework and assessment method (CEAM) for manufacturers and specifiers to evaluate a luminaire's circularity, moving beyond just energy efficiency to include longevity, repairability, and responsible end-of-life management. - Leading manufacturers are adopting "design for disassembly" principles, creating modular luminaires where components like LED modules and drivers can be easily replaced or upgraded, extending the product's life and reducing waste. This approach is a core tenet of circularity, moving away from integrated, unmaintainable fixtures that dominated the early LED market. - Material innovation is central to circular luminaire design, with companies like Zumtobel using plastic-free reflectors made of biodegradable biocomposites and housings from recycled steel for products like their IZURA pendant. Other manufacturers, such as ERCO, utilize 100% recycled aluminum for housings, embedding circular economy principles directly into the product's material composition. - The "Light as a Service" model, offered by companies like Signify, reframes the business of lighting as a service rather than a product sale. In this model, the manufacturer retains ownership of the fixtures, taking responsibility for maintenance, upgrades, and end-of-life recycling, creating a closed-loop system. - To enhance transparency and enable future reuse, the concept of a digital "material passport" is being adopted for lighting products. These passports, provided by manufacturers like Zumtobel and Whitecroft Lighting, contain detailed information on a luminaire's components and materials, facilitating recycling and remanufacturing. - Cradle to Cradle (C2C) certification is a key benchmark for circular products, and several lighting manufacturers have achieved it. Waldmann's LAVIGO was the first C2C-certified office luminaire, and Zumtobel’s ARTELEA recently received the latest Version 4.0 certification, verifying its performance in material health, product circularity, and social fairness. - The WELL Building Standard's feature L03 for circadian lighting design uses Equivalent Melanopic Lux (EML) to measure light's impact on human health, requiring specific levels to support natural biological rhythms. This aligns with the human-centric lighting pillar of sustainability strategies like ERCO's Greenology®, which focuses on perception-oriented design as a way to use light more effectively and sustainably. - Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) are becoming critical for quantifying a luminaire's total environmental impact, from raw material extraction to end-of-life. While the energy consumed during the use phase has the greatest impact for LEDs, manufacturing the aluminum heat sink is the next largest factor, highlighting the need for efficacy gains and circular material choices.
