Third party certified EPDs are independently verified and registered documents that communicate transparent and comparable environmental performance data and other relevant information about the life cycle impact of a product.
Dialight Asia-Pacific Managing Director Malcolm Lee told Green Review that the use of third party certified EPDs was extremely rare in the industrial lighting market, and thus had created another key differentiator for Dialight.
Lee said: “We are seeing a shift in the market – driven by European customers – where EPDs are becoming a prerequisite for products to make specification lists. “This is common across commercial applications, and it’s only a matter of time before industry follows suit. “In the future, you will not be able to bid for a project without an EPD.”
Preparing EPDs for its product lines has made Dialight rethink every aspect of its products, from material science and supply chain to product assembly and end-of-life. Using EPD analysis for its major product lines, which involves understanding the impact of material choice, material source, and fixture weight, Dialight identified the carbon footprint of materials used in its products. This analysis is now established under Dialight’s research and development criteria and is being used to design its first net-zero industrial lighting fixture.
The main focus of industrial LED lighting is reductions in electricity usage and emissions, while at the same time providing numerous safety benefits. These include decreased height-related injuries due to less frequent lamp replacements, the removal of old mercury-based technologies with LEDs that do not contain hazardous substances, and increased visibility making work environments safer.
Adopting LED lighting is a quick win with a high impact, offering an emissions reduction of 70 per cent when compared to traditional lighting. The financial payback period on LED lighting can be as low as two years, and with an expected lifespan of at least 10 years, this offers a very positive return. A focus on efficiency will reduce operating costs and emissions simultaneously and will enhance, not burden, operational performance.
One of the biggest challenges facing businesses is demonstrating their commitment to ESG as well as a science-based approach to reducing their carbon footprint. Unless you analyse and understand emissions data by type and process, according to Dialight, it is impossible to develop a reduction plan with targets.
Dialight is currently developing carbon reduction plans to be submitted to the Science Based Targets initiative later this year, which involves the business analysing its internal processes to understand what generates the most emissions. Lee said: “We have considered what investment would be required to decrease those emissions, including the return on investment, as well as the opportunity cost of making that research and development investment.
“We have also quantified the impact of purchased materials, downstream and upstream transportation, and end-of-life impacts. “While we can influence some of these, there are always going to be residual dependencies on
governments and industry.”
Dialight achieved three times the emission intensity reduction in 2022 for Scope 1 and 2 emissions (a reduction of 9 per cent compared to Dialight’s 3 per cent target). The company has a longer-term aim of reaching net zero by 2040, rather than 2050, as emissions prevented now are more valuable than those prevented in the future, based on the concept of the time value of carbon. Dialight’s largest Scope 3 emissions (90 per cent) relate to customers using its products, which can only be eliminated by a decarbonised electricity grid.
While Dialight is focused on reducing the carbon footprint of its own operations, it has realised the largest opportunity to affect change in overall carbon emissions worldwide is to focus on reducing lightingrelated emissions by maximising the efficiency and lifespan of its products. The company also aims to promote the use of LEDs and advanced controls systems, as they provide significantly better environmental and safety benefits than legacy lighting technologies, especially in industrial applications.
As of December 2022, Dialight received a silver EcoVadis Sustainability Rating, which covers a broad range of non-financial management systems including environmental, labour and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement impacts. Most of these sustainability principles were already in place at Dialight, but were not evaluated under an ESG framework or rated until the company engaged EcoVadis and other rating agencies.
Dialight has ESG ratings from the Carbon Disclosure Project, ISS ESG, and the Green Economy Index, as well as reporting under the requirements of TCFD for the first time in March 2022.
Dialight is among the only industrial LED lighting companies that provide environmental product declarations (EPDs) for its products, and aims to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040.
