The publications – which address standards, optical safety, and lighting in general – are available from both the CELMA and ELC websites.

In other news from Europe’s SSL industry, the European Commission (EC) is asking for help in choosing “an appealing and catchy name” for its upcoming Green Paper on Solid State Lighting. You can vote online until 9 September. The Green Paper is expected to be published later this year as an action under the EC’s Digital Agenda for Europe.

CELMA and ELC

CELMA is the Federation of National Manufacturers’ Associations for Luminaires and Electrotechnical Components for Luminaires, and ELC is the European Lamps Companies Federation. The European lighting industry is represented in Brussels by CELMA for luminaires and components, and by ELC for lamps.

CELMA and ELC presented a joint forum at Light+Building last year, and also gave several presentations at Strategies in Light Europe 2010 (see Related Stories, right). Both CELMA and ELC will participate in Strategies in Light Europe 2011 (Milan, Italy: October 4-6) as Supporting Organizations, and will make presentations on standards and on the Global Lighting Forum.

The recently-released publications are:

• Joint CELMA-ELC Guide on LED-related Standards (3rd Edition, July 2011)
• ELC-CELMA position paper on Optical Safety of LED Lighting (1st Edition, July 2011)
• CELMA-ELC Guide on the Importance of Lighting (1st Edition, June 2011)

The standards document consists primarily of a comprehensive list of relevant standards and publically-available specifications (covering both performance and safety) from international bodies, as well as standards and specifications from the UK, Italy and the USA. It also contains a very helpful list of standards or amendments under development.

The Importance of Lighting document discusses the benefits of good-quality lighting in general, discussing areas such as improved productivity and health benefits.

Optical safety

The ELC-CELMA paper on Optical Safety of LED Lighting focuses on white-light sources used in households, and evaluates the photo-biological safety of LED lamps and luminaires.

One of the main conclusions of the paper is that LED lighting is “safe to the consumer when used as intended.”

While recognizing the potential issues with excess blue-light levels, the paper says that the “portion of blue in LED is not different from that in lamps using other technologies at the same color temperature.” A comparison of LED and retrofit products “reveals that the risk levels are very similar and well within the uncritical range,” says the document.

However, blue-light exposure also has a important role in regulating human metabolic processes, so intelligent use of blue and cool-white light sources can be used to create lighting conditions such that people will receive their daily portion of blue light to keep their physiology in tune with the natural day-night rhythm.

The paper also discusses optical safety, in particular the hazards of looking directly into bright, point-like sources, as well as other potential eye and skin hazards.