Some final words

My year as President of the ILP draws to a close and I will hand over the baton to Pete at tomorrow’s AGM in Brighton, so just my closing thoughts on what has been an excellent year that has passed very quickly.

It has been a great honour and pleasure for me to undertake the role of President of the Institution of Lighting Professionals over the past year and to know that my fellow lighting professionals considered me worthy of the role.

During my year I have looked to the theme of sustainability in lighting and used the opportunities given to me to promoted good light practice and sustainable lighting solutions. Within this I have stressed that the task to be lit must firstly be considered before looking to the use of the right technology. Sustainability has to be balanced; looking at the task, considering social and economic as well as environmental aspects, looking to optimise existing assets whilst making selective investment in new ones.

We have a wonderfully and ever increasing pallet of light sources, luminaires and control systems to choose from but too often we see the technology being chosen before the task is assessed and then, perhaps, the wrong technology applied to the job. The industry does tend to embrace the latest technologies and forget what others exist that may well light the task more efficiently.

With some of my fellow lighters I have become infamous for regularly talking about Ultra-Efficient lighting (UEL) and competent designers. Ultra Efficient Lighting is defined as the right light, in the right place, at the right time, controlled by the right system, designed by competent designers taking a whole life costing approach. It is not related to any one technology or light source but the right ones for the task.

I am therefore very pleased to see that this is all being reflected with the latest EU Green Public Procurement (GPP) criteria for both Indoor and Street lighting. The details are discussed with the ILP’s ‘Guidance on current and forth coming legislation with the lighting sector document’ which has recently been updated and is available as a free down load from the resources section of the web site.

I would encourage you all to read this important ILP guidance document and look to your requirements under GPP.

The above is just one aspect of how the ILP is developing to encompass, advise and represent all those involved within lighting. I personally feel this is to the good of the industry and for those within it to learn more skills and improve their competencies and look to an understand technologies and approaches to lighting in other sectors and how they may be best applied within their own.

This can only be to the benefit of the ILP and members in the long term and bring all those involved in lighting further together to exchange and share knowledge and good practice which is one of the ILP’s key aims.

We still have many challenges ahead looking to how we work with our Industry Partners, kindred Associations and Professional Bodies as well as how we look to the provision of technical information to our members and I am sure that these are topics that Peter will develop late this morning.

I must thank my own employer, WSP, for their support and encouragement in taking on this role and thank the members of the lighting team for their support whilst I undertook the role. I must of course not forget the most important person, my wife Caroline who has supported me over all of the years leading up to president and over the last year coming with me to attend various Regional and National Events.

Before handing over to Pete I thank the Regions for their excellent hospitality over the year, the Exec Board: Alistair, Mark, Colin, Pete, Richard and the team at Rugby for all their support and the team’s work in progressing and developing the ILP. In my year as immediate past President I will look to support Pete to the best of my abilities.