How A Chinese Designer, Zheng JianWei, Explained Green Lighting To A Live International Audience

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2016-10-26 10:32 4522

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BEIJING and BRUSSELS, Oct. 26, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The World Green Design Organization (WGDO) set up its Green Lighting Committee this year, with Zheng JianWei, a Chinese Lighting Desiger, as the first chairman. From October 11th to 13th 2016, from a room in Beijing to the European Parliament in Brussels, Zheng JianWei creatively used webcasts to host the WGDO international Green Lighting Summit, where he interactivley discussed the definition of Green Lighting and its evaluation methods, and gave out the world's first "red card penalty" of green lighitng, which raised people's awareness of and attention to green lighting.

WGDO international Green Lighting Summit picture

At the beginning of the meeting it was clear that most people in attendance assumed that "green lighting" was a term that described energy efficency. As Mr. Zheng explained, however, health and sustainability are the core values of the "green" concept, so if that's the case, does energy-efficency make a tangible impact? To define green lighting, increasing the focus on the health effects and sustainability of artificial light is a must. Non-green lighting refers to illuminating products or lighting projects that are intentionally or unintentionally harming people's visual health, triggering vision-related safety accidents, reducing overall lighting efficiency, and producing light pollution. Due to a lack of attention to these issues, people's understanding of green lighting is still evolving, and non-green artificial light is dominant everywhere.

During the two days of interactions between Mr. Zheng and netizens, the topics discussed were mainly related to the definition of green lighting and its evaulation methods. The main concept of green lighting consists of four dimensions, which are:

Visual Health - The basic requirement of green lighting is that it does no harm to visual health.
Lighting Safety - Green lighting should effectively prevent potential visual-related safety hazards.
High Lighting Efficiency - Green lighting should be capable of completing multi-scene lighting tasks systematically and effectively.
Light Pollution Control - Green lighting should avoid disturbing other people and the ecosystem.

The important evaluation criteria of green lighting based on its definition includes:

The possibility of making glare a key point of green lighting evaluation.
The proper brightness of the main area where the light is focused and the enitre brightness contrast relation are both important for visual safety and comfort.
Whether the color rendering and color temperature of an artifical white color is close to natural light will influence visual health and lighting efficiency.
Excessive short-wave blue and ultraviolet rays are harmful to visual health.
The excessive use of colorful light and dynamic light can influence both visual health and lighting safety.
Taking full advantage of intelligent control to enhance the adaptability and utilization rate of the lighting system.
Make highly effective use of natural light to increase lighting efficiency.
Use lighting methods that do not disturb others.
Reducing harmful impact on animals and plants from artificial lighting.
Controlling damage to the dark sky from artificial lighting.

In the second half of this meeting, Zheng JianWei invited netizen to name a bad example of a green lighting product (including light source, luminaires, TV screen, mobile phone and other display devices) or a lighting project (including interior or exterior lighting projects and light shows). Only one red card was given out based on the highest vote and experts' judgement (other nominations will not be disclosed- only the red card recipient was called out). According to the nominations, two notable mobile phone brands and a famous city light show were the top three candidates. With live supervision, the judges (two from Europe and one from China) discussed with Mr. Zheng the definition of green lighting and its evaluation methods, and then they conducted two rounds of voting to confirm the red card recipient.

Finally, Mr. Zheng announced the surprising result: the first WGDO red card penalty for green lighting was given to the Apple iPhone.

Apple is an iconic technology company, so how could did the iPhone become an example of bad green lighting? Moreover, because of the iPhone's leading position in the industry, the methods that Apple uses to deal with screen brightness have become the standard in the smartphone industry, giving their designs far-reaching influence. Illuminated mobile screens have become an integrated display platform with a collection of communication tools, information streams and entertainment, so our eyes are fixed on these screens for a long time every day. These screens cause glare, and the smaller light-emitting area, the greater chance to cause glare, which means that our eyes can be staring at such small light-emitting screens. Because these screens are mobile people might neglect the potential danger of this kind of concentrated brightness in relatively dark places. By giving the Apple iPhone this red card penalty, WGDO is expecting that Apple, as a technology leader with great influence across many industries, will strive to significantly enhance their product's visual healthiness and lighting safety. They can take full advantage of their technological prowess to improve their lighting system's efficiency and prevent light pollution. Apple could lead the entire smartphone industry to a higher level of green lighting.

Green lighting is related to visual health, lighting safety, lighting efficiency, light pollution prevention, and is bound closely with our daily life. Lots of artificial illuminating products and lighting projects have huge space for improvement. We need to work together to improve our light environment for a more healthy and sustainable future.

To learn more view the event playback here: http://www.yizhibo.com/l/3femPsNdAme_YW8Q.html

webcast 2D barcode

About Zheng JianWei

Founder of "Lighting Stories", a Chinese lighting designer
Principal lighting designer of Beijing 2008 Olympic central district
Lighting artist of interactive lighting red carpet for Beijing 2014 APEC
President of Green Lighting Committee, World Green Design Organization (WGDO)
Winner of two world's top recognition for lighting design
2009 IES (Illumination Engineering Society of North America) Award of Excellence, Paul Waterbury Award, for the 7th courtyard of Beijing Olympic central district
2014 IALD (International Association of Lighting Designers) Award of Excellence for Wuhan Hanjie Wanda Plaza

About The World Green Design Organization (WGDO)

The World Green Design Organization (WGDO) was founded in Brussels, Belgium, in September 2013. It is the first non-profit international organization to promote the development of green design throughout the world.

WGDO consists of the executive committee, the council, and the general assembly, whose members are spread out in almost thirty countries. The organization has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Yangzhou, Hong Kong, Brussels, London, Paris, Stockholm, Berlin and Frankfurt. WGDO advocates for and broadcasts the idea of "green design" on a global scale. By means of "green design", it leads the change of mode of production, consumption and life, the transformation of consumption patterns, and implements the integration and mutualism between human and nature. WGDO promotes communication and cooperation in areas of information, technology, materials, projects, capital and talents by running various activities, such as the World Green Design Forum in China, the European forum, the World Green Design Expo and the election of The World Green Design Product Award, The World Green Design Contribution Award, release the "World Green Design Reports", and more.