Most offices have adequate but aging lighting systems that often operate inefficiently, can waste vast amounts of energy, and annoy employees. Wasted electricity, excessive or uneven illumination, and difficulty concentrating are three top complaints of office workers. More significantly, increasing awareness about the building sector’s growing role in climate change is shifting tenant and investor preferences and influencing owners to improve the performance of their buildings to stay competitive. U.S. buildings consume nearly three-quarters of the country’s electricity and are responsible for 39% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
The technology exists to revolutionize commercial lighting: LED bulbs and today’s intelligent digital controls systems can together provide higher-quality indoor environments while saving significant energy and money. However, even though LEDs are fast becoming the go-to home lighting product because of their long life, energy savings, and precipitous cost decline, LED retrofits in commercial buildings remain a nascent industry, with $63 billion in market value untapped.
Basically, the problem is that everybody wants a better lighting system but nobody wants to pay for it. Owners don’t want to spend their capital budgets, especially where tenants pay the utility bills. Tenants don’t feel empowered to invest in capital projects, especially when their leases are short term. Hence the opportunity for third-party service providers.