Company overview
EarthLIGHT is the central tenet of Holophane’s approach to Environment, Social and Governance issues and it details their comprehensive approach to these issues.
Through EarthLIGHT, Holophane enhances its operations, social responsibility, and products to aid customers in lessening their carbon emissions and creating a more sustainable environment.
Holophane celebrated 125 years trading in 2021 and it has always been synonymous with energy efficiency through its use of efficient optics, upgradable construction and recyclable materials. Holophane is committed to reducing its carbon footprint and also that of its customers. The EarthLIGHT initiative raises awareness and helps them achieve their goals.
Holophane has taken the strategic decision to “on-shore” the production and supply chain to the UK and EU supply partners. One immediate benefit is the reductions in transportation time, reliability, and costs. Luminaires are 100% assembled in Milton Keynes and >95% of components are sourced from the UK or EU.
Having luminaires designed, compliance tested, tooled and manufactured in UK means helps to eliminate supply chain issues caused by Brexit, Covid and the conflict in Ukraine.
EarthLIGHT describes Holophane’s journey and roadmap to net zero. In 2021, Holophane moved to purchasing all its electricity from renewable sources. They have installed solar PV roof panels which are expected to provide 70% of electricity requirements in 2022.
EarthLIGHT also provides the strategy ensuring that Holophane makes steps in moving from a linear economy of Take-Make-Waste to a to circular economy of Take-Make-Repair-Reuse-Recycle. All Holophane products are designed in line with the European Eco Design Directive ensuring the Right to Repair principle is designed in.
In November 2021, the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers, CIBSE, and the Society of Light and Lighting, SLL, launched their Technical Memorandum TM66 on creating a circular economy in the lighting industry. TM66 included the introduction of a new Circular Economy Assessment Method (CEAM). Since then, all Holophane Europe designed products have been calculated to provide a CEAM score customers can use when specifying Holophane products.
The EarthLIGHT goal is to achieve an Excellent rating for all new products. Some products are already rated as having Excellent circularity and over 25 existing product families are rated at Definite/Substantial progress to circularity.
Environment
Holophane’s head office and manufacturing facility in Milton Keynes is now covered with 686 solar PV panels. These are expected to produce up to 80% of their annual electrical power needs and return approximately 45,000 kWh to the grid each year. The remaining 20% is procured from 100% renewable sources such as Hydro-electric, Wind turbine, Thermal and Biomass. These suppliers are certified by the Carbon Trust and conform to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
Reducing waste in manufacturing and packaging have always been important for Holophane and even more so as part of the EarthLIGHT initiative.
Some examples are:
The return and recycling of the plastic trays used by their LED board supplier. This has resulted in almost 8 tonnes of plastic waste avoided since 2019 or the equivalent of almost 400,000 (500ml) plastic bottles. Another example is using recyclable paper instead of plastic for packaging void filling. This has saved almost 3.5 tonnes of plastic waste per year.
Every luminaire eventually comes to the end of its life and according to the WEEE Directive has to be correctly recycled and does not end up as landfill. Holophane is a member of Lumicom which is the UK’s leading independent not-for-profit WEEE Compliance Scheme specifically set up to serve the lighting industry.
Our night-time skies are precious. Holophane has over 10 product families that have been awarded the International Dark Sky Association, IDA, “Fixture Seal of Approval”. This provides objective, third-party certification for lighting that minimises glare, reduces light spill and doesn’t pollute the night sky.
Social
The heart of any company is the people who work for it. Holophane UK are accredited as an “Investor in People” business which assesses an organisation based on their 9-part framework through training, developing and engaging with its people. Holophane UK has also had a long-standing commitment to apprenticeship schemes. It works with educational establishments such as Loughborough University, Coventry University, Bedford College and local Milton Keynes schools to provide year-long in-work placements.
As well as Investors in People, Holophane UK has introduced policies and training for all levels of staff to encourage equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace. These policies are fully supported by senior management and have been agreed with the employee representatives.
Product sustainability
Holophane has been manufacturing quality luminaires with exceptional lighting performance throughout its 125-year history. Their commitment to EarthLIGHT means that they design products not only for best-in-class performance but also a more sustainable product lifecycle. This is achieved by using their 4 pillars Eco-Design product development process; Sustainable, Scalable, Serviceable and Separable. It includes reducing the amount of material and components used (Sustainable), ensuring the luminaire is no bigger than it has to be Scalable, making it easy to maintain and upgrade (Serviceable) and making the materials used easy to identify and separate (Separable).
David Barnwell, Holophane’s Managing Director commented “Our new EarthLIGHT philosophy and initiative is fundamental to the business demonstrating our commitment to the environment, our people, and our community. EarthLIGHT is a core concept of our strategy and reflects our comprehensive approach around Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) topics. Holophane Europe is also committed to lessening our carbon footprint and helping our customers do the same. We are reducing waste, lowering costs, minimizing carbon impacts, optimizing energy usage, increasing our product circularity, and helping our customers reduce their energy use and carbon emissions to achieve their own goals and priorities”.
For more information on EarthLIGHT please visit: https://www.holophane.co.uk/earthlight
Find out more about Holophane Europe Limited on their member profile page here
Member-created content 2 years ago | From members