LightingEurope backs PEP ecopassports

LIGHTINGEUROPE has joined the PEP Association, developer of the PEP ecopassport environmental declaration programme.

The move is being seen as backing for the organisations life cycle assessment model, which has product specific rules for luminaires.

In a statement, LightingEurope said: ‘As part of our activities in sustainability, LightingEurope has been evaluating available tools that deliver comparable and verifiable information on the environmental impact of lighting products in a cost-effective way.

‘There are a number of initiatives across the world to assess and communicate the environmental impact of products, but few are tailored to the specificities of lighting, and all of the lighting-specific initiatives are still in their early stages’.

However LightingEurope is adamant that life cycle assessments (LCA) and related environmental product declarations (EPDs) should not become a mandatory requirement.
The cost and complexity would, it believes, be prohibitive for its luminaires maker members across the continent. However, regulators are known to be considering the sustainability landscape and are drawing up legislation on so-called ‘greenwashing’ or making false environmental claims for products.

LightingEuropes says that LCAs entail a complex process and significant resources to deliver a lot of information. ‘There will be cases when all the information is not needed or useful and where the effort is not justified’, it says.

LightingEurope that while the PEP ecopassport is the most mature LCA for general lighting that it has come across to date, it is ‘still not optimal’.

‘Our members are currently compiling a list of topics that should be addressed as part of the revision of the PEP Product Specific Rules 0014 [for lighting] that will take place in 2022, in order to improve the overall methodology and make it more sensitive to the diversity of products and applications’

LightingEurope secretary general Ourania Georgoutsakou, pictured, sees the revision of the PEP ecopassport PSR 0014 as ‘a very challenging task’, due both to the complexity of the lighting market and the time constraints.

‘Luminaires are used in many different applications and there are many different products and suppliers on the market. Devising a methodology that can take into account the variations among luminaires used on streets or tunnels, in offices, at home or in a swimming pool, to name just a few examples, and that will not penalise the legitimate design and material choices determined by the specifications for each of these products, is a daunting task.’

The PEP revision timetable, which requires the revised PSR to be finalised by September 2022, adds to the complexity.