Everyone knows that lighting retrofits represent the low-hanging fruit of building energy-efficiency opportunities. Investments in replacing bulbs, upgrading fixtures, and utilizing smart controls and management systems can repay themselves quickly and provide ongoing savings for years.

But lighting upgrades represent only the beginning of the process, not the end. By thinking about lighting more holistically, building engineers and facility managers can optimize other parts of building operations, multiplying savings. Example: more efficient lighting, which produces less heat, may significantly reduce air conditioning demand, resulting in a smaller chiller retrofit and fewer fans and pumps, with accompanying cost savings.

Join Joel Makower, Chairman and Executive Editor of GreenBiz.com, in a conversation with Rob Watson, Executive Editor of GreenerBuildings.com and CEO of EcoTech International, and Steve McGuire, Environmental Market Manager of Philips Lighting. In this live webcast, you’ll learn the secrets of bringing such savings to light, by understanding how integrating lighting upgrades with other improvements can accelerate efficiency and savings.

During this free webinar you will learn:

• How understanding the five myths about lighting can cut your costs with minimal investment.
• How lighting choices can affect the design and operation of everything from chillers to windows.
• How to ensure that efficiency upgrades continue after installation through monitoring and verification techniques.
• How to uncover the energy efficiency of your facility compared to best-in-class facilities, and how to identify which lighting upgrades are cost saving opportunities you can integrate.
• How to get your bright ideas implemented and sell your management on the benefits of an energy upgrade...

The drive to improve lighting efficiency in commercial buildings is only one part of the equation, however. Understanding how lighting contributes not just to overall energy use, but to occupant comfort and productivity, can help to optimize the return on your lighting investments far beyond the basic cost-benefit analysis.

Speakers:

Rob Watson, Executive Editor GreenerBuildings.com

Rob also serves as the chairman, CEO & Chief Scientist of the EcoTech International Group, which helps clients around the world achieve cost-effective high performance green buildings. Under Rob's direction as the "Founding Father of LEED" and as its national Steering Committee Chairman between 1994 and 2005, the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED rating system became the most widespread and fastest-growing standard by which green buildings are measured worldwide. A pioneer of the modern green building movement for over twenty years, in 2007 Rob founded EcoTech to meet the fast-growing demand for green building technologies and services in China, India and the U.S. Link to Rob's stories.

Steve McGuire, Environmental Market Manager, Philips Lighting Co.

Steve is responsible for the Sustainability and Environmental Marketing programs for Philips Lighting in North America. He has been in the lighting industry since 1984 and with Philips for more than 23 of those years. Over the years he has performed numerous jobs within the lighting industry from manufacturing, facility maintenance, development engineering, and environmental compliance. While work in the development department, McGuire was one of the patent holders for the (low mercury) ALTO products Philips offers. He has worked with several committees and government agency over the years on various lighting issues from regulation, legislation and compliance. Steve is an executive board member for the Alliance for Sustainable Built Environments and the Institute for Market Transformation.

Moderator:

Joel Makower, Executive Editor, GreenBiz.com

Joel is Executive Editor of GreenBiz.com and author of "Strategies for the Green Economy," among other books. For more than 20 years, he has been a well-respected voice on business, the environment, and the bottom line. He is a regular lecturer to companies and business groups and has served as a Batten Fellow at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. From 1991 to 2005, Joel was editor of The Green Business Letter, an award-winning monthly newsletter on corporate environmental strategy. The Associated Press has called Joel "the guru of green business practices."