Bickerstaffe Blog - Paradox Special
What a quarter it has been. Another trip to India to visit our hotel client, two visits to the Far East for Lighting Exhibitions and more trips up the M1 and down the M4 than my carbon footprint feels comfortable with. In fact, I am starting to experience carbon footprint bunions.
It's an odd paradox and one that must be witnessed in many quasi-environmental professions. You have a new product whose core relevance is the reduction of energy use, and you've got to burn up immense amounts of fossil fuel telling people all about it. Imagine the scene at COP15 when thousands of delegates arrived in planes from all over the world to argue with each other about the need for serious and rapid reduction in, well, the use of petroleum. Yes, I read the mitigating headlines too but, you know, they had to get there somehow.
I spoke to not one but two physicists recently at one of the London Universities. As it happens, God bless them, (or whatever belief or unbelief system they subscribe to), they both bought a load of LED Bulbs from me for their personal use. One of them was convinced that the human intervention in climate change was undeniable, the other was equally adamant in the opposite corner. However, we all agreed that saving energy was, in and of itself, a good thing. Whether or not it is our own bally old fault that it's alarmingly nippy, or wet, or steamy out there, (and let's face it, no one looks smart in a puffer jacket or a T- Shirt), the undeniable truth is that a reduction in energy consumption will preserve what we have for longer, will allow more funding for healthcare or education as the Local Authorities or Public Sector Bodies find they have to spend less of their budgets on , yes I'm going to say it, lighting.
Ah, but I know what you're thinking, there's a flaw in my thesis, isn't there? The energy companies will get a bit miffed, won't they? What an appalling shame. Well, doubtless they'll just put up our electricity costs even further than they are currently (sorry) planning to bridge the revenue gap, - simples - .....which will mean that switching to LED (do you see where I'm going with this? it's ever so jolly) will result in even faster paybacks.
What about new products? Well, one thing I guarantee about Kudos is that we listen to our clients. Can't always do anything about a particular requirement, like an LED retro-fit equivalent 4-pin quad fitting, but we do listen. We have, in the last few months, released a track light system, a dimmable PAR light suite, even more powerful and dimmable (!) MR16s and GU10s (up to 400 lumens) and, da daaa, a true equivalent to a 60 Watt incandescent bulb, the EQ60. The eagle eyed anoraks among you may have spotted an article in the Mail on Sunday a couple of months ago about a similar product from a Dutch company. No names no packed lunch. Now I have never slandered, libelled or generally rubbished a competitor product in my whole lighting career but, technically, ours is brighter, lasts as long or longer and, as I write, is about half the price. We have deliberately chosen to keep our margins very tight in order to allow customers to buy it at a sensible price with a sensible payback period. At 12 hours use a day, an independent calculation suggests that in under 8 months the bulb will have paid for itself in energy consumption alone, let alone maintenance, switching mechanism and wiring benefits.
I wonder if the words HEFCE SALIX mean anything to you. How about Revolving Green Fund? If they do you will already be familiar with the carbon trust backed loan schemes to encourage people to reduce energy. Ideally the way it works is that the financial savings on energy more than compensate for the required repayments such that, in effect, the scheme is cash generating. This is specifically relevant to Universities. They have been in the news a great deal recently as the Government intends to cut funding which might result in fewer students and constraints in other areas. Something a University might wish to take note of are Hefce's own words in their recent report "Carbon reduction target and strategy for higher education in England". On page 14 of the report (paragraph 47) in a section entitled "Key areas where carbon reductions could occur" they state the following:
"47. According to the SQW report the six most viable interventions in terms of scale of impact and cost-effectiveness for the sector are:
- lights and electrical appliances......"
I know I would say this but I don't believe it is coincidence that "lights" is the first word used in the first recommendation in the list. Changing a light bulb, or a fitting, is extremely easy. One of the longest running jokes always begins "How many xxx does it take to change a light bulb?" If you are in a position to take advantage of a loan scheme such as Salix offer I can tell you that the vast majority of our products are compliant. And that's a bit of a no-brainer.
Please think about your lighting and please, please think about changing to LED and please, please, please think about partnering with Kudos. After almost three years experience of LED lighting in research and marketing we do know what we're doing and some very exacting institutions have put their trust in us. Hospitals, Universities, hotel groups and large corporations have now been using our LEDs for over a year. And if they use them for 12 hours a day, they've still got 10 years to go.
And please do think again if you're contemplating CFLs. You may have heard it before but consider this. A single household CFL contains enough Mercury to contaminate 6000 gallons of fresh. Now that.....is a heck of a lot of orange squash.
See you next time.
Simon Bix