LC Blog
Sustainable School Lighting Defined
November 28, 2011 at 12:10 PM by Dr. Robert Davis
Recent years have seen a growing emphasis on sustainable school design, with rating systems such as CHPS and LEED for Schools leading the way, and a growing number of conferences and events related to this topic. In those rating systems, the points allocated for lighting generally provide rewards for using as little energy as possible for the lighting, and for providing daylighting into the school environment. And in terms of reducing the impacts of lighting on the natural environment, these rating systems can be quite effective
But is sustainable lighting defined completely by minimizing energy use? A while back, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES) and The International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) joined forces to put forward their definition of sustainable lighting. In this definition, the drive to minimize the environmental impact from lighting is placed alongside the goal of meeting the qualitative needs of the visual environment for the teachers and students using the school. After all, if our school lighting fails to provide a high-quality visual environment that supports learning, is it really sustainable?
The IES Handbook goes even further in highlighting this point for school lighting. In the Handbook, the stated goals for school lighting systems include providing environments that are responsive to the psychological and emotional needs of the learners. In my view, this type of holistic view of the impacts of lighting, both on the natural environment and on the people who work, teach and learn in our schools and universities, truly defines sustainable lighting.
I explain these definitions in a bit more detail on a short video clip titled Sustainable School Lighting - Defined in our video library, taken from our AIA Sustainable Lighting for Schools seminar. You can register and take the entire one-hour seminar for free at The Continuing Architect. And you can read our whitepaper, Five questions to answer about sustainable school lighting, for further information.
