Philips joins The Climate Group’s LED lighting campaign

Feb. 23, 2012
Philips has become a corporate partner in The Climate Group’s three-year Clean Revolution campaign, which aims to speed up the global switch to LED lighting.

Philips Lighting has become the first corporate partner to join The Climate Group’s three-year Clean Revolution campaign. The partnership aims to speed up the global switch to LED lighting, which offers extraordinary opportunities for significant cuts in both energy use and worldwide carbon-dioxide emissions, according to the participants.

The Climate Group is an independent, not-for-profit organization working with governments and business leaders to advance policies, technologies and financing that will accelerate low-carbon economic growth. In December 2009, The Climate Group launched its LightSavers program of outdoor LED lighting demonstration projects.

The participants believe that LED lighting also provides important social benefits, such as higher productivity at work, increased road safety, more-effective school learning and an enhanced sense of well-being and comfort at home, in buildings and on streets.

Marc de Jong, CEO of Professional Lighting Solutions, at Philips, said: “We have joined the Clean Revolution campaign as we believe it is an excellent avenue to further strengthen the case for LED lighting that can lead to dramatic savings in energy and spur low carbon growth, while enhancing people’s feeling of security and comfort on streets, in buildings, and at home.”

“This partnership underlines our commitment as a leading health and well-being company to drive the wave of innovative LED lighting and provide meaningful solutions that improve people’s quality of life.”

Mark Kenber, CEO of The Climate Group, said: “Over the next three years we will be working with Philips to highlight the opportunity for governments and corporations in investing in the low-carbon economy with a focus on expanding the use of what is one of the most promising smart technologies, LEDs.”

Kenber said that the Lightsavers program had seen LED-lighting pilots in ten global cities, including Hong Kong, London, New York and Mumbai. “Our cooperation with Philips will allow us to further highlight the great cost-savings and energy efficiency improvement LEDs provide and catalyze a low carbon transformation in lighting around the world,” he said.

Currently, lighting accounts for around 19% of global electricity production. A full switch to LED lighting could reduce energy consumption for lighting by 40% worldwide. This translates to approximately 130 billion euros in running costs and 670 million tons of avoided carbon-dioxide emissions per year.

Furthermore, the switch to LED lighting could cut back the need for capital investment in new electricity-generation capacity of over 1 trillion euros – or some 640 power plants.