We are ready for a green revoloution in all things energy. Consider the desk light. You want it made from recycled materials? Check. You want the greenest light bulb, LED? Check. You want it made in the USA? Check. The HeronLED Personal Task Light is the first high-quality, LED-based desk lamp for corporate and home office environments made in the USA from recycled plastic, and featuring a replaceable, made-in-USA LED light source
Nancy Wahl-Scheurich, green entrepreneur and CEO of Little Footprint Lighting answers our questions about The HeronLED. We tried to be tough, but we really love the design and concept of seriously green task lighting.
What is so green about The HeronLED?
First, because it uses only 4.1 watts to produce as much light as a typical 30 watt incandescent, it saves energy. But beyond the energy saved when people use the lamp, this lamp is greener than others because of how and where we make it. It is made of recycled ABS plastic that comes from e-waste. Using recycled material has a lower carbon footprint that using virgin materials, and we’re keeping plastics out of the waste stream by recycling them to make the body of our task lights. We get the recycled plastic from MBA Polymers in Richmond, California, and it only has to be transported a few miles to our manufacturer in San Leandro, where it’s injection molded and the lamps are assembled. The lamp has a steel base to add stability. We went out of our way to be sure the steel used is made in USA and has a high percentage of recycled content. (Though most steel contains recycled content, it’s typically around 25%. The steel we use contains 70% scrap metal.) The steel base is cut and processed in California.
We also worked really hard on making the LED light source as sustainable as possible. Most LED desk lamps currently available simply have the LEDs integrated into the fixture itself, so if something goes wrong, the whole thing has to be thrown away. Even though those manufacturers probably did this because the expected life of LEDs is so long (ours will last 15 to 20 years, for example), we still don’t think that approach is very green. Failures occur, lamps get dropped, things happen. So from the beginning, we designed our product so that if for some reason (breakage, manufacturing glitch, etc.) the LED bulb stopped working, it would be easy to replace with another one of our bulbs. The whole fixture, including the bulb, is covered by a 5-year warranty, and after that if users need to replace the bulb, we plan to have them send us their old one which we will replace for a small charge to cover our costs. Another very cool thing about our LED light source is that it is made in Vermont – not overseas like most LED bulbs.
Our packaging, of course, is made of 100% post-consumer recycled material, and also made in the USA. Getting our raw materials (recycled plastic and steel) and as many components as possible from here and manufacturing in California means we use much less fuel to make and deliver product to our US customers than we would if we were doing it all in China. And by doing it this way, we support green jobs in the US.
What is new about this light?
Aside from the fact that it’s the first high quality LED desk lamp made in the USA from recycled plastic providing the recommended amount of light for under 5 watts, its nature-inspired design is unique and combines style, functionality, and sustainability in a way nobody has done before. We have always believed that few people would buy it just because it’s a green product, but rather because of its beauty, its high quality AND its sustainability.
What is the inspiration behind Little Footprint Lighting?
When I was hired by a new company in the LED architectural lighting space about 3 years ago, I fell in love with the notion that LED lighting can save so much energy that we really can reduce the carbon footprint of lighting. I was dismayed, however, that more folks in the LED world weren’t taking it a step farther and doing other things to reduce carbon footprint and to support sustainability by doing things like using recycled materials. I also felt that a key part of going the extra mile for the environment was manufacturing in the USA where we can be assured that safety and environmental controls are in place and where we’re closer to one of our biggest potential markets. The idea for the HeronLED came to me when I was taking a class to become a LEED Accredited Professional. When I realized that points could be earned by using products that save energy and are made from recycled materials, and that another point could be earned by giving occupants control over their own lighting (which a desk lamp does), I thought, “Why isn’t anybody making a desk lamp using LEDs and made out of recycled plastic?”. When I left that company I was determined to try to make one, and to do it in the USA.
We could walk into a store and buy a much less expensive light. What makes this light economical? How long would we have to use this light before the energy savings surpassed the buying cost?
That’s a complicated question, but I’m really glad you asked it. First, we never intended to directly compete against cheap made-in-China desk lamps that use short-lived incandescent bulbs or even the ones that use longer-lasting CFLs. The price you would pay for one of those fixtures is less than some of the components in our lamps cost us! We do, however, compete really well against other high quality desk lamps designed to look good and provide excellent light in workspace and home office environments. If you go into a lighting specialty store, you’ll see many desk lamps – most NOT using LEDs – that cost $200 or more. At $195.99 suggested retail, we’re already priced at the lower end of that market. Then if we compare the cost of running our lamp 8 hours a day every day to that of running an equivalent incandescent desk lamp for the same amount of time, energy savings alone are about $8 a year (assuming energy cost of $0.11/kWh), and of course the replacement cost is much less because the LEDs will last 15 or 20 years. That may not sound like a huge savings if you’re talking about just one desk lamp, but you can see how it would add up in a large office building, and that’s not even taking into account the additional savings that could be achieved through decreased ambient lighting combined with task lighting, an approach that has proven to be really affective in reducing energy used for lighting.
LED lights are expected to become an important lighting source in the future. Many people think they should wait until the price comes down to begin to change over. What is the advantage to buying now?
Buying now means saving energy starting today, reducing your electric bill. Replacement costs are also reduced because good LED lights last so much longer than incandescent and CFLs. The minute you replace a traditional light source with an LED light source, you decrease the carbon footprint associated with your lighting. It’s an investment that provides short-term tangible savings and the long-term intangible benefit of knowing you’ve made the choice to use the most sustainable light source currently available.
What else should we know about Little Footprint Lighting?
LittleFootprint Lighting is certified Women Owned Business and Certified California Small Business. We’re going to prove that high quality, made in USA, very sustainably made products are not only good for the environment, but also make good business sense.
Thank you Nancy.
Visit Little Footprint Lighting for ordering information and more.
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