Interview
Embedding sustainability and driving circularity
EW editor Bryony Andrews speaks to Nigel Harvey, CEO at Recolight.
Please tell us about your role at Recolight.
I have now been CEO at Recolight for 15 years, and many in the Recolight team have over 5-10 years’ service - two having longer service than me! We are incredibly fortunate that the sustainability values and objectives of Recolight align brilliantly with those of team members. That makes me very proud of our team, and of their passion and commitment.
Can you share a brief overview of Recolight’s formation, and how it has evolved in the years since? Recolight was set up in 2005 by some of the world’s largest lighting manufacturers to provide any company with professional, not-for-profit WEEE compliance. Since 2019, the passion and commitment of the Recolight team has expanded our circular economy services to include conferences, LCAs and EPDs, webinars, reuse and training workshops, and most recently net zero support services.
What are the advantages for wholesalers of working with producers who are part of the Recolight WEEE scheme?
Recolight gives the customers of our members access to free-of-charge, or low-cost (depending on volumes) lamp and luminaire recycling. So for many wholesalers that means their branches can have a free Recolight waste lamps container, and free collections. What’s more, we recently reduced the threshold tonnage
22 | electrical wholesalerDecember 2024
for getting a free container, to make it even easier for wholesaler branches to get involved. Recolight also offers waste battery and general WEEE collections, which means that wholesalers can offer their customers a comprehensive waste drop off service. That encourages footfall, customer engagement, is a demonstration of the wholesaler’s commitment to sustainability, and also very practically helps customers to do the right thing with their waste.
How do you support manufacturers to embed sustainability into new products, without just relying on recycling?
One of the best ways that manufacturers, and wholesalers, can embed sustainability, is to put in place new services and processes for the remanufacture of lighting equipment. Remanufacturing or upgrading is generally much more sustainable than recycling. That is because the recycling process itself destroys much of the value, and embodied carbon in a product. So providing an upgrade service that, for example, converts fluorescent lighting to LED simply by replacing the light source,
but retaining the body of the fitting, is often much more sustainable. Typically, the embodied carbon savings in such situations can be up to 80%, and with 50-60% reductions in waste arising.
What have been some of your milestone Recolight achievements in the past 12 months?
The most significant milestone in 2024 was the establishment of a partnership with One Click LCA to provide the lighting industry with access to cutting-edge Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) software. LCAs and EPDs are increasingly being demanded by customers and specifiers. They provide credible, third-party-verified data that evidences the environmental impacts of products. Although not yet mandatory, it seems likely that an LCA or an EPD will become the de facto standard for manufacturers to provide their customers with credible sustainability data.
How do your live events help to drive forward your mission?
We organise events to give lighting producers
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