INTERVIEW | Finelite R&D executive says DfD is ‘a lot of work’ but it also expands potential for innovation

LEDs: What changes or obstacles do lighting companies need to identify and understand in order to engage in DfD?

Smith: Incorporating DfD into the culture of your product development cycle is important. You have to actively consider components early in the design phase, so that you can factor in disassembly questions and needs during the design process and educate your team. Establishing clear principles to follow going into the design process is a start.

For example, when we begin product development, we’re going to make a materials list. We're going to make a fixture that will be easy to disassemble. We're going to try to limit the amount of composite materials that we're using, so at the end of life, we can recycle those materials or reuse components somehow.

Another key is pushing those ideas down to your supply chain. If we're working with driver manufacturers, how can we help them understand the need to have materials transparency for those components? That's a big pain point, trying to get material details nailed down. We ran into an issue where a potential design called for a washer and a hanging clip, and some manufacturers can't give us specifics on the materials that go into those simple components — even though they're made out of metal and steel — because they don't have traceability all the way back [to the source].

We have to work with them to understand what our need is at a basic level; and then we may even have to switch suppliers to somebody who can get us that documentation. But knowing that right in the beginning of the project, we can narrow down our options to those suppliers who can and will provide that information — examples like whether there is a composite material involved. Is it recyclable material? And so on.

LEDs: If you're trying to design a product for disassembly at end of usable life, what happens to components that need to be removed from the system because they can't be utilized?

Smith: We need more research about what happens at the end of life in a building. My experience is that it's very regional, depending on the code, the building process, or who the contractor is. There are certainly folks who have their own green initiatives; when they decommission lighting or electrical equipment, they'll separate out the components into different bins and try to get down as much as they can to the recyclable parts, especially things like copper wiring and components that are easy to separate.

Of course, there are still situations when fixtures are just getting thrown out, and you don't know what happens at the waste management facility. Are they actually separating those out, shredding them, and getting those materials out of the way? Ideally, we'd have a way of disassembling everything and being able to separate those materials so people know what they are. That's still something we need more clarity on — and this isn’t unique to lighting. It's happening everywhere.

LEDs: Does Finelite have specific initiatives that measure progress toward its sustainability and DfD goals?

Smith: For a long time, Finelite has had recyclable documentation on all of our fixtures. We've also tried to make all of our fixtures easily serviceable. We’re one of six Legrand lighting companies and Legrand has a corporate social responsibility program, and they set public targets for different sustainability goals. For example, we have goals for the amount of recycled content that we're trying to incorporate into our fixture weight as a benchmark. And we’re seeking to be carbon neutral by 2050 across the entire Legrand organization.

There is monthly reporting not only for our business sustainability but also our product development sustainability. We’re learning from each other across the different businesses what the challenges are, things like packaging and how to reduce single-use plastics, improve processes, hit new goals, and hold ourselves accountable by reporting to the marketplace — like the people who invest in Legrand. They want to see us do the right thing, and we want to do the right thing, too.

LEDs: Do you have an example of an idea from around the greater organization that resulted in a sustainable process modification for Finelite?

Smith: There is one that’s tangential to fixture design but it has everything to do with packaging and transporting end product, which can have huge carbon impact implications.

In the past, typically fixtures were put together and shipped in a box. We've developed a job pack where we ship the fixtures without a box; they can be easily stacked on a pallet. But we never had that ability with our linear fixtures, so we created a component. I don't know if you've ever ordered wine in the mail... One of our team members pointed out that they had seen wine being shipped with a molded pulp insert. It’s just paper that's in the shape of a bottle; it will allow the box to hold its shape and not collapse, and the wine will be safe. Somebody thought, what if we applied this idea to our fixtures? We could eliminate the box and use these molded pulp inserts on our pallets. The molded pulp allows separation between the fixtures and then you stack all your fixtures together on a pallet. You can eliminate so much cardboard. We can make job packs now for our 4-inch fixtures, and we're getting the tool made for our 2-inch fixtures to be able to create these job packs. Now, we can send the packs to a distributor or even to the field without using extra cardboard that just gets thrown away.

This is a good example about the level of effort that goes into coming up with sustainable solutions. With the molded pulp, we had to do a lot of testing. We’d make full pallets of fixtures and send them to a FedEx facility to compare how a regular pallet packed with fixtures fares in terms of its safety compared to a job pack. It meant utilizing our supply partners to help us and FedEx running those pallets through their paces. If they can help us, it saves them money, because they don't have orders that are getting destroyed in transit. You need that feedback… Can your pallet [stay intact through] five different transitions or two different transitions? All stuff that I never thought I would need to know, but it's impactful from a sustainability standpoint because we can ensure products get transported responsibly and not have wasted product from damage, plus unnecessary packaging.

It took a year and a half or more to get the first prototypes out, so we're probably two years into it and we're just starting to get people to use more job packs.