CIBSE and the LIA collaborate to launch Product Verification Scheme for lighting industry circular economy

The LIA (Lighting Industry Association) and CIBSE (Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers) have joined forces to introduce an innovative product verification scheme aimed at promoting circular economy practices within the lighting industry. This scheme, known as the TM66 Assured, will provide independent verification of lighting manufacturers’ circularity claims, ensuring accuracy and credibility.

The TM66 Assured product verification scheme, developed by the LIA and endorsed by CIBSE, is an essential component of the comprehensive TM66 toolkit to assess the circular economy credentials of lighting products throughout the supply chain. It leverages CIBSE’s TM66 Creating a Circular Economy in the Lighting Industry guidelines and the TM66 Circular Economy Assessment Methods (CEAM) developed by a cross industry team of manufacturers, specifiers and associations whose insight and ideas ensured TM66, published in 2021, would be both easy to use and widely applauded.

TM66, offers practical guidance and tools to enable the lighting sector to adopt sustainable, circular practices and has already gained recognition and adoption by major specifiers and organisations within the industry. In the future, it is envisaged that this will be extended to cover other areas of building services engineering beyond lighting products.

The collaboration between CIBSE and the LIA combines the power and expertise of CIBSE with the robust quality assurance, certification systems, and UKAS accredited laboratory of the LIA. Manufacturers are already providing ratings for their luminaires, and with the TM66 Assured Scheme, they can now seek third-party verification ensuring the credibility, objectivity, and consistency of these ratings. This partnership ensures the reliability and integrity of the TM66 Assured Product Conformity Verification Scheme.

David Barnwell, Managing Director of Holophane Europe Ltd., expressed his support for the initiative, stating, “Anything that helps drive greater awareness of the environmental benefits associated with a circular economy approach is a positive step forward. The TM66 Assured Product Conformity Scheme allows participating manufacturers to demonstrate their sustainability efforts, providing clear differentiation from unsubstantiated greenwashing.”

Helen Loomes, President of the Society of Light and Lighting, highlighted the importance of sustainability in lighting practices and the need to evaluate products based on their whole-life carbon impact and material life cycle. She praised the TM66 and CEAM frameworks for enabling informed specification decisions. With the introduction of the TM66 Assured Product Verification Scheme, decision-makers can now have confidence that circular economy claims are robust and comparable between products, providing protection throughout the value engineering process.

Ayça Donaghy, CEO of the LIA, emphasised the lighting industry’s commitment to delivering net-zero solutions and the necessity to address environmental impact comprehensively. Transitioning from the unsustainable linear economy to a circular economy, where resources in luminaires are conserved, valued, and their life extended, is the next logical step. Donaghy expressed her delight at the partnership between CIBSE and LIA, which brings together both organisations’ strengths to establish a much-needed level playing field in sustainability ratings.

To learn more about the LIA and this initiative, visit https://www.thelia.org.uk/page/TM66_Circularity. For additional information on CIBSE, please visit www.cibse.org.uk.