Green Products for Sustainable Office and Classroom Lighting

Because we're committed to the green spirit of lighting, our fixtures are engineered with the most efficient combinations of ballasts, lamps and optics available to produce the most light from the least amount of energy. But at Finelite, product sustainability doesn't end with energy savings. Many of our main fixture components contain high percentages of recycled materials, and every Finelite fixture goes through an environmentally friendly powder coat paint process.  Even our packing and shipping methods are sustainability-driven: special palletized packing allows us to eliminate the need for boxes that would otherwise be discarded soon after arrival at the jobsite.    

Finelite's dedication to lowering lighting energy consumption can be seen in our innovative approach to system-based lighting design. Take our Integrated Classroom Lighting System (ICLS), for example. Studies show that Finelite's ICLS reduces lighting-based energy consumption by an average of 30% to 50% over traditional classroom lighting while producing a lit environment teachers prefer by a wide margin over standard approaches.

Our new Personal Lighting System (PLS), designed in accordance with the federal Energy Efficiency Promotion Act of 2007, is a unique, LED based, solid-state task lighting system (patent pending) that allows for a 50% reduction in power consumption compared to even the most efficient fluorescent tasklights.  Not only are PLS fixtures manufactured in a paperless lean environment with significant amounts of recycled content, these fixtures are end-of-life recyclable, too. Their die cast aluminum and steel components are 100% recyclable, while the other parts, comprising only 10% of the PLS total weight, are easily removable and completely lead-free. The carefully designed thermal management of the LED junction temperature provides for greater LED life. In an office environment at an average of 6 hours use per day, that means nearly 30 years of expected life.

When PLS is used as part of Finelite's Integrated Office Lighting System (IOLS), typical offices can achieve lighting power densities as low as 0.50 to 0.65 watts per square foot. Lighting a significant number of offices with this approach would remove 1,000 MW from the California energy grid, allowing the State to meet the reductions outlined in the Governor's recent comprehensive energy plan.

Applied nationally, the potential energy savings using the IOLS approach reaches staggering levels.  Assuming the lighting density of roughly 10 billion square feet of commercial office space could be reduced by one watt per square foot (a conservative assumption for IOLS), the result would be an annual energy saving of 28 billion kWh. That's equivalent to the output of 20 medium sized power plants — and enough energy to power 4.7 million homes. Viewed from another perspective, the energy savings would equal removing 3.2 million cars from the Nation's roads.  

Finelite's sleek new S15 indirect / direct ambient fixture utilizes patented optical technology to allow unprecedented mounting height-to-spacing ratios between fixtures without sacrificing lighting quality. Not only do wider fixture spacing translate to fewer fixtures and therefore lower energy consumption, the ability to mount the S15 so close to the ceiling means that low ceiling heights no longer preclude the use of high-performance, visually comfortable lighting. The result: tremendous energy savings in a far greater number of buildings. Further, the reduction in floor-to-floor height requirements made possible by the S15 system would translate into a reduction in necessary building materials for new construction.