The Philips lighting company is pushing for businesses, municipal authorities and building owners/operators to switch to energy-efficient lighting as a way to reduce energy consumption.

The call follows today’s release of “Transforming the Market: Energy Efficiency in Buildings,” the final report by the four-year Energy Efficiency in Buildings (EEB) research project. The report was sponsored by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), along with Philips.

According to the WBCSD, buildings use more energy than any other sector and as such are a major contributor to climate change. Today’s report presents new energy use modeling to show how energy consumption in buildings could be cut by 60 per cent by 2050.

“A significant proportion of that reduction could be achieved even sooner by the adoption of energy-saving lighting,” says Kaj den Daas, a Philips executive. “If all the lighting in the world were switched to energy efficient solutions, €120 billion could be saved on electricity, as well as 630 million tonnes of CO2. That is the equivalent output of 600 power plants or 1,800 million oil barrels in a year.”

Lighting accounts roughly for 19 per cent of world’s electricity use, and some three-quarters of all lamps in use remain older, energy-inefficient models.

“This not only represents a quick win, but a ‘triple win’ in the effort to cut electricity consumption and lower greenhouse gas emissions,” den Daas says. “End users and building owners can lower their costs and benefit from better quality lighting; the environment can benefit from lower energy usage and lower carbon emissions; thirdly, an accelerated switch to energy efficient lighting would increase competitiveness within our economies, and stimulate employment in renovation and infrastructure projects on buildings and cities involved.”

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