ENERGY-EFFICIENCY MEP VISITS THORN LIGHTING

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 29th May 2009

Training Manager Martin Thompson, Fiona Hall MEP and Hugh King at the Thorn Academy of Light

Lib Dem MEP for the North East, Fiona Hall, an energy efficiency specialist on the European Parliament's Industry, Research and Energy Committee, visited Thorn's Spennymoor plant on Monday 18 May 2009, to hear about their continued commitment to both developing energy saving light fittings and also educating the professional market on the benefits of energy saving products, in the company's drive to take the least efficient energy using light fittings off the market.

Fiona was keen to hear about the company's flexible framework PEC or Performance, Energy, Comfort, which underpins Thorn's approach to lighting design and implementation. This approach, on which staff receive full hands-on training in the newly opened Thorn Academy of Light, aims to combine optimum lighting, productivity and safety with low environmental costs for workplace and public lighting. The company has applied this approach to its own operations and facilities and was able to reduce in-house energy consumption by 43% when it moved to the new Spennymoor site in February 2009.

Following a tour of the factory, Martin Thompson, the Academy's Training Manager was able to show Fiona the lighting application areas and indoor and outdoor product displays including a demonstration supermarket and classroom, as well as floodlights for outdoor sporting events.

Fiona, who wrote the European Parliament's 'Action Plan for Energy Efficiency: Realising the Potential' in January 2008, and who is currently leading the negotiations for the recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive for the Liberal and Democratic group in the European Parliament, was eager to know how the company has reacted to the challenges of meeting new European and domestic legislation on energy efficiency. She met with Lou Bedocs and Peter Thorns - the Strategic Lighting Applications Managers at Thorn to discuss their concerns and priorities.

With buildings responsible for 27% of the UK's energy consumption and carbon emissions both Fiona, Lou and Peter agreed that there existed a significant potential for reducing consumption and acknowledged a need for stricter controls to reduce energy waste in buildings. One way of doing this is through the systematic integration of environmental aspects at a very early stage in the product design. They agreed that the most significant energy efficiency problems are not to be found in new builds, but existing buildings, many of which are currently great energy wasters.

Said Fiona: "If we are to achieve significant improvements in energy efficiency and slash our CO2 emissions, both new and old buildings must be brought up to the highest efficiency standards. Lighting in Europe accounts for 14% of electricity use so it has an important and highly visible role to play in driving down energy consumption

"Research and development in lighting is moving at a fast pace. What was regarded as the most up to date lighting scheme five years is inefficient and outdated by today's standards. High sustainability criteria will continue to drive design and development in the future.

"But there are still problems to address - not least in the disposal of domestic compact fluorescent lamps and batteries, many of which currently end up in landfill sites rather than being disposed of as hazardous waste. Labour Government policy in this area has been an abject failure, with little or no information to consumers about how to deal with everyday objects which should not go into normal landfill."