Making Lighting Matter to Sustainability: UWO’s Sustainability Focus

Many of us install LED lighting for its function and style. But another key benefit of making the LED switch is energy savings and carbon footprint reduction. To find out more about how lighting use impacts the overall sustainability of our nation, I talked to Stephanie Spehar, Sustainability Leadership Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, where she is also the Sustainability Coordinator for the new general education program.

“Electricity use for lighting represents about 12 percent of total US electricity use,” says Spehar. “Our University, like many others, signed onto the American College and University President’s climate commitment in 2008. It says that we have made a commitment to achieve climate neutrality as soon as possible and reducing our energy consumption from lighting is a crucial part of this.”

Indeed, Spehar believes the small changes her university makes will help instill students and faculty with a sense of responsibility to make changes at home as well. And besides leading by example, the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh is also redesigning its general education curriculum to include sustainability topics at every level. Spehar is in charge of designing these new standards and incorporating them into the new general education courses.

“We view our campuses as living laboratories. Everything that we do is an opportunity to teach and learn about sustainability—that includes campus energy consumption and ways we can reduce it. “

In 2011, substantial outdoor lighting upgrades were made on the UWO campus, including LED retrofits on most outdoor lighting fixtures. LED fixtures were used predominantly in pole lighting along walkways, and the university is also in the process of replacing all incandescent exit signs with LED signs.

Spehar believes the changes her school is making will help students learn the right choices to make in their own lives at home.

“As a university our primary goal is education and creating opportunities that educate the next generation of citizens and leaders; the whole point is to teach them about what they can do to address social and environmental issues, and why they should care in the first place. They can then take steps to make positive changes in their own lives and communities”

So the next time you wonder if the LED strip lighting you installed in your kitchen is really making that much of a difference for the planet, remember, every little bit counts! And in the meantime, you’ll sure start to notice the difference in your own pocketbook.

“If we can get people to change behavior related to lighting, that’s going to make a really big dent in electricity use and therefore our greenhouse gas emissions,” says Spehar.