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Light bulbs
Make the switch: our challenge to retailers
Posted by bex on 3 May 2007.
 | These two bulbs might look pretty similar but, beneath the surface, there are some important differences. The bulb on the left uses five times less energy than the one on the right. It lasts up to 12 times longer. It can save UK consumers around £1.2 billion in electricity bills per year. It’s available for less than a pound from several major retailers. |  |
Oh, and if every UK retailer only stocked the one on the left, the UK could cut just over five million tonnes of carbon dioxide from our total emissions – more than the CO2 emissions of the world's 26 lowest emitting countries combined!
Yep, the bulb on the left is a Compact Fluorescent Lamp (or CFL). It’s been around for years but, recently, the cost has plummeted and the design has improved massively - it’s now available in all sorts of shapes, colours and sizes. The bulb on the right is the common household light bulb – an incandescent bulb that wastes 95 per cent of energy as heat. Yet it still accounts for 80 per cent of bulbs in UK homes.
With the government unlikely to bring in an energy efficiency law anytime soon, we've launched a new campaign to get every UK supermarket, DIY store and department store to make the switch and take all incandescent bulbs off their shelves.
As I wrote last month, the Co-op’s already pledged to do exactly this, and Curry’s has already done it. Now we just have to persuade the rest of them.
Which is where you come in. Retailers’ purchasing practices directly affect the world we live in, even down to the weather. And, as we saw with the revolution triggered by our sustainable seafood campaign, they are sensitive to consumer pressure.
If you want to help remind retailers of their responsibilities (and help cut the UK's emissions by over five million tonnes) please send a letter to your supermarket, DIY store or department store now.
Response from John Lewis...
A message which appears automated, so does that mean they are receiving substantial messages regarding the Challenge, or have I really received an email penned by the CEO himself!!
Whatever it is they have produced a nice response, but what I can't understand is the problems they are referring to which haven't been encountered by other retailers, can someone help?
Anyway here it is, and yes that is my real name and not one I made up when I contacted them...
Dear Mr Coffin
Thank you for your email.
The John Lewis Partnership is fully supportive of moves by industry and the Government to improve the energy efficiency of consumer products. We have been closely consulted on the Government's plans to phase out incandescent lightbulbs and we support this action and other initiatives to raise the energy efficiency of lighting products. While we want action in this area to be as progressive and far reaching as possible, timing is, in part, determined by the rate of product development and cost efficiency by manufacturers. As retailers we encourage energy efficiency both in our own usage and by making customers aware of the choices they have to reduce energy usage in lighting.
However, we do not believe the performance of energy efficient light bulbs is yet at a level that allows incandescent light bulbs to be removed from sale. Unlike some of the retailers you mention, we have a full range lighting offer and energy efficient bulbs (CFL and halogens) are not currently available for all of the light fixtures our customers want. We also believe our customers should be able to continue to purchase replacement bulbs for existing light fixtures they have bought from us until such a time as there are suitable alternatives. Also, in some lighting categories, energy efficiency light bulbs fail to meet minimum performance standards. For example, failure rates for CFLs are currently above acceptable tolerance levels, especially in some applications such as where dimmer switches are used.
However, we are fully supportive of a campaign to phase out incandescent bulbs progressively over the next two to five years. This timescale should provide sufficient time for product development to ensure that energy efficient light bulbs are available as a substitute for all conventional light fittings, and that minimum performance standards are achieved. In the meantime John Lewis will continue to promote the sale of energy efficient light bulbs and light fittings. As a direct result of our efforts over the last three years, we have seen a significant increase in the sales of energy efficient and halogen bulbs, which have doubled since 2004 and these categories now represent 40% of all bulb sales.
We expect sales of energy efficient and halogen bulbs to continue to grow and we have in place a number of new initiatives to promote sales. These include price reductions - our Energy Saving Genie range, for example, is half the price it was a year ago. We also have a policy to use energy efficient bulbs in our light fitting displays, and we have significantly increased the availability of light fittings which only use energy efficient bulbs. We are also developing better in-store signage for energy efficient light fittings and bulbs, and as part of a new labelling policy, we will soon promote energy efficient bulbs in our bulb fitting instructions.
John Lewis is firmly committed to reducing its environmental impact and to encouraging our customers to do the same. We fully support the phase out of incandescent lightbulbs but this must be undertaken over slightly longer timescales than you suggest for the reasons outlined above.
Yours sincerely
Charlie Mayfield
Chairman
John Lewis Partnership
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This email is confidential and may contain copyright material of the John Lewis Partnership. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify us immediately and delete all copies of this message. (Please note that it is your responsibility to scan this message for viruses). Email to and from the John Lewis Partnership is automatically monitored for operational and lawful business reasons.
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John Lewis plc
Registered in England 233462
Registered office 171 Victoria Street London SW1E 5NN
Websites: http://www.johnlewis.com
http://www.waitrose.com
http://www.greenbee.com
http://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk
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re: Response from John Lewis...
I imagine everyone who's written to John Lewis has received a similar letter, but at least they've taken the trouble to write back. Thanks for posting it!
Has anyone received responses from any of the other retailers we've listed?
web editor
gpuk