Good lighting can make all the difference to a retail experience. You can highlight different areas and use colour to influence your customers and their purchase decisions. It can set moods and even tell a story about your brand. But using different types of lighting to help achieve these aims is changing.
Following the review into how to make lighting less environmentally damaging, the EU brought in a timetable to phase out certain types of lamps across 2023-2024. This roadmap has been broadly followed by the UK, with different lighting types steadily disappearing from shelves over the period.
Perhaps the best known example is the ubiquitous fluorescent tube. For decades this was the most popular form of lighting in retail. But fluorescent lighting accounts for 4 tons of mercury being dumped into landfill each year. The need to stop this being dumped in the ground is obvious.
But the phasing out of lighting technologies goes further than tube or strip lights. By early 2024 the following lighting will no longer be available:
| Lamp Type | UK Phase-out Date | EU Phase-out Date |
|---|---|---|
| T8 (other lengths) | 01/02/2024 | 24/08/2023 |
| T8 (2’, 4’ 5’) | 01/09/2023 | 24/08/2023 |
| T5 & T8 Long Life | 01/02/2024 | 24/08/2023 |
| T5 | 01/02/2024 | 24/08/2023 |
| Sodium | 01/02/2024 | 24/08/2023 |
| Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) | 01/02/2024 | 24/02/2023 |
We have already seen T8 tubes begin to disappear from sale. Availability of the others will also quickly fall away. Which makes it important that you begin to move your lighting to LED.
Save money – and the planet
The good news is by updating your lighting to LED you will save significant sums in the near future. As LED lighting consumes up to 95% less than older lamps, you could see your lighting energy cost come down. Through such huge savings, our experience of LED upgrades has shown retailers typically recoup the cost within 2 years. This makes upgrading lamps and fittings much easier to bear.
The other benefit with moving to LED is how much easier they are to recycle. They contain no mercury or discharge gases, and what few chemicals they do contain can be readily recovered. Making LED much better for the environment and helping you on your path to great sustainability.
LED lighting is also more than about saving money and helping to improve our world. With LED lighting you open up a whole new world of how you use light for retail spaces. LED can be controlled to give out different light for specific reasons or effects, giving you the creative freedom to think about how you can promote products and services even more effectively.
Switching to LED lighting is in most cases a straightforward process. But it must be done properly. Your lighting must be cared for by someone with the experience and correct training to do the work.
With Store Maintenance have already completed a number of LED upgrade projects around the UK. Our network of highly experienced contractors are on hand to make the switch a painless affair. Contact us today to find out how we can give you more control over the lighting in your properties – and save money.
