Reducing the environmental impact

Care for the environment must be taken into account when designing your outside lighting scheme. The following will need due consideration regarding the impact on local wildlife and residents

• lamp colour temperature ( Kelvins )
• lamp lumen output
• luminaire design properties. (should be low glare) 
• Energy efficiency

Insects and wild life at night are distracted by the cool colour spectrum of 6,000 kelvins and above. Studies have shown that bats in particular are disturbed by bright cool lights and impact on their habitat. If you are in an area with dense foliage and have an abundance of wildlife, we would recommend a product with an anti glare shield to reduce upward light spill, but not a flood light with a symmetric beam distribution which throws light in all directions including up into the sky.

If you must have a flood light choose one with an asymmetric beam distribution, this is designed to place the flood light in a flat position and push the light down and forward. Also where possible try to keep to the warm spectrum of the kelvin range like 2,700k or 3,000k which will have less impact on wildlife at night. Be aware of your neighbours, which means not shining a flood light directly at their property.

The use of low level bollards and ground mounted lights can be just as effective to lighting a large area but will have much less environmental impact. The use of wall lights with a glare shield will also throw lots of light at night.

Soffit recessed downlights provide great wall washing effects to the outside of properties and fixed downlights will create nice pools of light onto patios and decking below.