James Morris-Jones, International Sales Director at Lucent Lighting, sat down with Nicolas Martin, Sustainability Store Planning Manager at LVMH, to discuss how to encourage sustainable practices in retail lighting.

LVMH have proven their ongoing commitment to sustainable lighting, creating Lighting for Good in 2018 in partnership with Temeloy. This eco-friendly think tank enlisted collaboration from over 25 lighting suppliers, including Lucent Lighting, to evolve innovation, services, and reliability towards sustainability in the lighting industry. Lucent has acted as a pioneer in the industry, working with sustainability at the forefront of its manufacturing process.

James begins by asking how LVMH, as a shining example of sustainable retail lighting, began their journey. Nicolas, who focuses on implementing the usage of environmentally friendly LED products in all LVMH Maisons, shares the best practices for retail lighting to achieve efficiency and sustainability. “We started by acknowledging the energy-saving contribution of LEDs to the overall impact of lighting. We began by monitoring and estimating our carbon footprint, considering how we could fight climate change by reducing and recycling waste. We are aiming to have meters or invoices on all sites and stores before the end of the year. Our ultimate goal is to reduce our CO2 emissions by half - this trajectory was certified by SBTi as compliant with the 1.5 °C pathway.”

James and Nicolas agree that all companies in the lighting industry must work together and do their part towards sustainable lighting. Nicolas discusses the best practices that LVMH have undertaken in regard to the circular economy. “We launched Lighting for Good in 2018, aiming to introduce a new phase of luminaire design focusing on key factors of circular economy, easier maintenance and removing plastics from the field. Since 2010 we have been ensuring that our projects save energy, with our goal being to reduce the impact of lighting.”

Commenting on the difficulties that the retail sector faces when implementing sustainable lighting solutions, Nicolas comments on how to encourage retailers to become more sustainable in their design practice. “The biggest challenge towards sustainable retail lighting is that historically retail brands will refurbish every 3 – 5 years to boosts sales. One of the greatest drivers to encourage retailers to be more environmentally friendly in practice is to rethink the way they are doing business in terms of cost, as the price of materials and transportation has inflated, and it is key to design products and services with these efficiencies in mind.

“The most impactful best practice is to encourage retailers to keep products in a design, creating a service that enables them to reuse and repurpose luminaires throughout their life cycles so that they can refurbish stores while keeping the lights they already have.”

Nicolas shared what advice he would give to other retailers starting on their sustainability journey: “We hope to provide advice and support to those in the retail sector who are not sure where to start with their sustainability journey. Working together in open innovation is the best way for everyone to achieve their goals. Some internal clients have embraced the changes faster than others, but we have over 1,000 people to convince internally, so it takes time to explain and sell the solution to clients before they take it on board. We have an internal ratings system that grants credits if you are working to the circular economy model. Using this system we have already seen great signs of progress, so we are confident that we can change people’s way of thinking.”

Lucent Lighting and LVMH Lighting are passionate about using their collaboration to achieve sustainability in the lighting industry. Nicolas shares what role Lucent has played in helping LVMH become more efficient across their portfolio. “Our collaboration with Lucent has helped us to offer products with quality and longevity to our internal clients. While the design of retail stores changes frequently, Lucent products can last up to 15-20 years. This is amazing in terms of the circular economy and clients need to utilise this. We listen and work together and we are very thankful of what has already been done and are looking forward to future collaborations.”

James added: “Lucent Lighting are proud to be one of the founding participants in Lighting for Good and to do amazing work in supporting LVMH with their sustainability goals. Everyone has their part to play, and we all need to work together to achieve true sustainability within the industry. As a global lighting manufacturer, it is important to us to consider the measures we can take to reduce our environmental impact and encourage others to do the same. Our work with LVMH has already made us better as a company and we hope to achieve more together in the future.”