The National Lighting Bureau’s has launched its 33rd annual High-Benefit Lighting Awards Program. Unique in concept, the program is open to virtually anyone associated with a High-Benefit Lighting installation: owners, designers, facility or property managers, contractors, manufacturer’s representatives, utility employees, and users, among others.

The National Lighting Bureau coined the term High-Benefit Lighting to connote “function-focused” electric-illumination systems that are designed to fulfill the specific purposes for which they will be used, especially to maximize bottom-line returns for those who own, manage, and/or rely on the lighting. For example, High-Benefit Lighting installed in workspaces can help people work faster, because it comprises electric illumination designed for the specific space, tasks, and people involved. Just a 1% productivity improvement can save an employer $300 annually for each worker paid $30,000 per year. The cost of the electric energy that employer spends to provide electric illumination to an employee? Probably less than $50 each year.

Outdoors, High-Benefit Lighting can help prevent accidents of all types, from vehicle-vehicle to slip-and-trip, thus preventing the losses associated with filing insurance claims, absenteeism, administrative paperwork, accident clean-up, negative publicity, and litigation. Fewer accidents can also result in lower insurance premiums. In retail situations, better lighting can help improve customer attraction and stimulate purchasing.

According to National Lighting Bureau Chair Howard P. Lewis (Lighting Alternatives, Inc.), the High-Benefit Lighting Awards Program is “easy to enter. We want to encourage anyone associated with a lighting-system upgrade or installation to submit a case history chronicling how High-Benefit Lighting contributed to the bottom line. While a system must be energy-efficient to be considered High-Benefit Lighting, the dollar value of productivity improvements, safety and security enhancements, increased retail sales, and so typically is far more than the value of energy-savings alone. The dollars saved even by operating and maintenance cost savings of 70% can be dwarfed by the value derived from a productivity increase of just one or two percent,” Mr. Lewis said.

For consideration in the 2012 High-Benefit Lighting Awards Program, an entry must be received by the National Lighting Bureau no later than October 31, 2012. An entry should document how modification of an existing lighting system or installation of a new one improved productivity, increased retail sales, or achieved any of the many other bottom-line benefits of High-Benefit Lighting.

All persons who enter the High-Benefit Lighting Awards Program receive a hand-inscribed certificate of participation. If Bureau staff develops an entry into a case history, the person submitting the information will serve as the bylined author of an article published in a prominent trade or professional journal.

Established in 1976, the National Lighting Bureau is an independent, not-for-profit, lighting information source sponsored by professional societies, trade associations, manufacturers, and agencies of the U.S. government, including, among others:

• enLIGHTen America;
• GE Lighting;
• Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES);
• Imperial Lighting Maintenance Company;
• interNational Association of Lighting Management Companies (NALMCO);
• Lighting Alternatives, Inc.;
• Lighting Controls Association;
• Lutron Electronics Company, Inc.;
• Magnaray;
• National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA);
• National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA);
• OSRAM SYLVANIA;
• Philips Lighting; and
• U.S. General Services Administration.

For more information about the Bureau or its 32nd High-Benefit Lighting Awards Program, visit the Bureau’s website (www.nlb.org/awards.html) or contact Bureau staff at [email protected] or 301-587-9572.