Fagerhult replaces fossil plastics with bio alternatives

FAGERHULT has reformulated its popular Discovery luminaire, replacing much of its traditional plastics with materials based on renewable biological oils from pine trees and industrial frying.

The Discovery Evo features reduced fossil raw material in the production of polycarbonate plastic. Instead, an ISCC-certified material based on biologically renewable oil (tall oil and frying oil) is used, both of which are residual products from the forest industry and the restaurant industry.

As Discovery consists of 73 per cent polycarbonate plastic, the replacement of plastic materials means that the company can reduce its yearly CO2 footprint by about 90 tonnes.

The plastic replacement takes place through a so-called mass balance solution, explains Christer Liljegren, product and application manager, Fagerhult.

This means that Fagerhult has required its supplier to replace a certain amount of fossil-based oil with fossil-free in the overall production of plastic, which is then distributed over a certain period of time.

As a result, the luminaires may contain different amounts of renewable plastic. But, with a mass balance solution, it ensure that a large amount of fossil oil is not used in plastic production but is replaced by a renewable raw material instead.

Life cycle analyses show that the new ISCC-certified plastic has a 40 per cent lower climate impact compared to fossil plastics.

Despite such a major change, the new plastic has exactly the same properties as the old one, says the company, and nothing in the luminaire’s appearance reveals that there would be anything different about it.

The company has also made a commitment in 2022 to only uss aluminium profiles that are certified, with requirements for origin labelling of the material, where the energy in production comes only from renewable sources.

This change reduces CO2 impact from production of aluminium billets by 40 per cent compared to the European average, and has 78 per cent lower climate impact compared to the global average for aluminium billets.

• Recolight offers special one-day training workshops on ‘Lighting product design for a Circular Economy’. Hosted by industrial designer Simon Fisher of F Mark, the CPD-accredited event explores the design criteria, regulations and standards to help lighting manufacturers apply and demonstrate circular economy principles in product development. More HERE.