Most lights ‘end up as waste’

Some 100,000 luminaires are being removed from UK ceilings every week with the majority ending up in the waste stream.
That was the stark assessment of the End Cat A Lighting Waste campaign group which held its augural event in London last night. Architect John McRae of Orms told the gathering that just 7 per cent were recycled appropriately.
McRae said the construction industry needed to ‘change its addiction to the new and the bespoke’ if it was to be truly sustainable.
The group was set up to highlight and challenge the scandal, as it sees it, of Cat A fit-outs which are typically installed in speculative offices to attract a tenant. These are often ripped out to be replaced by a bespoke ‘Cat B’ installation to the client’s specification, with new lights, ceilings and floors removed.
‘We need to ask ‘what if’, said Kael Gillam, senior associate at Hoare Lea, at whose King’s Cross office the event took place. ‘We need ask how we can do better rather than ‘business as usual’.
She believes designers have a major role in challenging their clients, and designing interiors for flexibility and reuse’
McRae said there was no silver bullet solution to the issue of waste from Cat A installations. Instead, a mixture of measures are needed. These could include the reuse and remanufacturing of luminaires, ceiling tiles and flooring.
Tim Phillpot of SAS ceilings told the audience how the company had set up SAS Recover to take back, remanufacture and resell its ceilings.
However many real estate developers feel a form of Cat A is needed to achieve the desired rents. One said: ‘It’s really tough to take a building all the way through the planning and construction process, and then for it not to get a tenant would be a terrible outcome’.
Hoare Lea described successful projects where just one sample floor of a building had a Cat A fit-out but conceded that this wasn’t possible in all cases.
Other speakers included Leanne Tritton of Don’t Waste Buildings and Greg Lavery of Rype Office.
• Creative Cat A will be the subject of a special session at Circular Lighting Live 2025, Recolight’s flagship conference and exhibition, which takes place on Thursday 25 September 2025 at the Minster Building in the City of London. Free to specifiers, Circular Lighting Live 2025 will feature leading experts, specifiers and policy makers who will share their insights into forthcoming standards and legislation, emerging technologies and new business models. More info: www.circularlighting.live