Rethinking the Future: The Quest for Sustainable Lighting (Edinburgh)

Lighting design is evolving beyond aesthetics and efficiency to embrace a deeper responsibility: sustainability across the full life cycle. This event explores the challenges and opportunities of sustainability in lighting design through the principles of Understand, Measure, Reduce. From embodied carbon to circular economy and wider sustainability, we’ll examine how lighting can contribute meaningfully to environmental goals. Bridging theory and practice, the session offers strategies for integrating sustainability into every phase of the design process.

Kristina Allison has worked as a lighting designer and consultant specialising in lighting design, energy efficiency and training for over 18 years, and currently works at WSP as capability lead for the environmental, sustainability and net-zero team in the UK.

She has worked on lighting projects in a wide range of sectors including defence, rail, aviation, commercial / offices, universities, hospitals, retail, hospitality, warehouses and manufacturing sites. Kristina is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Society of Light and Lighting (SLL) and Member of CIBSE. She is the President of SLL and sits on the council and executive boards. 

In 2023 Kristina co-authored CIBSE TM65.2 ‘Embodied Carbon in Lighting, in 2021 co-authored CISBE TM66 – Creating a Circular Economy in the Lighting Industry and in 2019 also contributed to the CIBSE Emergency Lighting Guide LG12 publication. Kristina is also project manager for the forth-coming CIBSE digital LENI tool, which calculates operational energy for lighting schemes.

Kael Gillam (she/they) is a London-based Senior Associate at Hoare Lea, an interdisciplinary firm of engineers and specialist designers. With an educational background in theatre and a professional career in Architectural Lighting that spans the commercial and hospitality, as well as science and research and residential sectors, her designs focus on creating meaningful human-centric experiences and environments. 

Alongside her role as a designer, Kael represents the Lighting team in the firm’s Net Zero Carbon network, which promotes education on and implementation of sustainable practices in the construction industry. Through this network, she is championing research in circularity and carbon footprint data modelling to create a better framework for the design and specification of Hoare Lea Lighting’s projects – to make these forward-thinking considerations a standard part of their projects.

• Dr Irene Mazzei

Irene is Sustainability Lead at Stoane Lighting, an Edinburgh-based specialist manufacturer of architectural and bespoke lighting solutions. She was introduced to the lighting industry through an innovative collaboration between Edinburgh Napier University and Stoane Lighting on the topic of Life Cycle Assessment in lighting. Before that, Irene received her PhD in Chemistry after completing her BSc and MSc in Materials Science, studying sustainable alternatives to conventional industrial processes.

During her work in the lighting industry she’s collaborated directly with manufacturers and the wider lighting community, assessing the impacts of products and processes using LCA and other methodologies. In 2023, she was Technical Lead in the working group focused on the creation of a lighting-dedicated version of CIBSE TM65 embodied carbon assessment methodology, TM65.2. Among other things she is now leading knowledge-sharing initiatives and is directly involved in projects looking at improving the harmonisation of LCA practices in the lighting industry.

CIBSE Event Behavioural Policy

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