World Environment Day 2020

Stoane Lighting on World Environment Day 2020

All of us at Stoane Lighting are passionate about the Environment and as such we regularly ask ourselves “What can we do better?” The last year or so we have managed to find some answers to those question and we wanted to share some of them with you. The unusual routines of the past few months have also shown how different, maybe better ways, are possible

As a business we inevitably generate some waste, how can we best deal with this?

Firstly we did the obvious and started composting all our food and kitchen waste. From that we created our MSL allotment out the back of the tin shed. Keeping us fed in Carrots and Garlic (and Stef fed with Beetroot? – somebody had to eat it)

Secondly we upped our game on the waste front by bringing in a specialist waste company that can process and recycle everything we have left. We are now confident that all our waste is dealt with efficiently and effectively with absolutely nothing going to landfill.

We also have a policy of only making what is ordered, we don’t hold stock as this means more production and ultimately more waste.

We Design Lights, how can we do this better?

We don’t believe in planned obsolescence in any way shape or form and want to design products that last, an ethos we have held since our very beginnings. We are aware however that light sources tend to evolve faster that the metal shells they are built into.

We approached this on two fronts.

1. We want to be able to take old lamp based fittings and upgrade them to take a current LED/optic combination that doesn’t compromise on output. This year we took an old MR7 MR16 fitting and refreshed it into a shiny (refurbished) MR7 Xicato XOB based fitting.
2. We wanted to design a better product range that had reusability and sustainability as an essential ingredient from the start. From this the ZTA range was born.

   All designed around a single custom extrusion whose provenance we can control; less material is pulled out of the ground in the first place, any material removed to sculpt what we require takes less time and energy. The extrusion can be utilised in several different LED and optic combinations that can be easily repurposed, reused, reconfigured, or recycled.

Can we do better with packaging?

This was something we knew we could do better on. We were sending everything out in recyclable plastic bubble bags which, though repeatedly reusable, would undoubtedly be added to landfill as often as they were recycled.

We knew we could do better here and have moved over to using mostly recycled and entirely recyclable material for packaging. We still take the same care and attention with our packaging that we always have, and we took a while to find the right supplier that could meet our needs in providing protection to our products as well as being environmentally friendly. We also got to enjoy Ali kicking various options of packaging around the car park to see what met our packaging standards.

Other Lessons Learned

The current global situation has also helped us learn some valuable lessons into how we can do things better. Working from home has proved effective and I think we have all noticed a difference in the air quality since the roads have been quieter.

We have seen how effective zoom/skype/teams meetings can be…yes some bits can frustrate us and we miss seeing you in person but some of this must become the norm if we want to keep our carbon footprints limited. You may have seen our exercise in developing a VC light. That is coming on nicely. Certainly there are aspects of a real meeting that a VC can’t replace but maybe we can improve the experience a little.

Circular Manufacturing + working with others

Stoane Lighting is working with numerous specifiers and suppliers on this subject. An informal collective is moving the topic forwards whilst individual practices and companies are advancing this cause in parallel. We are working hard to collate a robust set of measures and metrics in order to implement and promote this behaviour up and down the supply chain. Soon we will share more on the subject and hope that many more will join us with the learning, teaching and implementation.