The Bay Area Climate Collaborative (BACC) and SWARCO Traffic Americas, Inc. (SWARCO) announced a collaboration to advance the market for energy efficient, adaptive lighting technologies through the Bay Area Next Generation Streetlight Initiative, a region-wide project to upgrade 200,000+ municipal streetlights to advanced light-emitting diode (LED) technology.

SWARCO’s sponsorship of the BACC’s Bay Area Next Generation Streetlight Initiative will support advancement of new streetlight technology that will improve municipal budgets and strengthen the local economy. Through the Bay Area Next Generation Streetlight Initiative, the BACC is supporting local governments with leading edge analytics, resources and educational opportunities to accelerate action with a target of catalyzing the upgrade of 200,000 streetlights. Over five years, the upgrades will deliver up to $50 million in reduced costs for local governments, over 100,000 metrics tons of CO2 avoidance, and many jobs.

SWARCO was founded in 1969 in Austria by Manfred Swarovski with a vision to develop and manufacture small, highly reflective glass beads to rest on top of roadway paint for improved nighttime visibility and safety for motorists. Today, 43 years later, SWARCO is the second largest roadway glass bead supplier in the world, the number one supplier of LED traffic signal heads, and a leader in parking guidance systems, traffic signal management, and public transportation services and software solutions. SWARCO recently opened a new Silicon Valley office in Sunnyvale, California. The BACC is a public-private initiative of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group launched by regional civic and business leaders in 2009 to accelerate the Bay Area clean energy economy and create replicable models of scalable climate action.

“As the world’s largest producer of LED traffic lights, we are dedicated to identifying new technologies that provide intelligent, holistic and sustainable transportation and lighting solutions and products for increased safety, reduced power consumption, and reduced maintenance costs,” said Frank Harder, CEO with SWARCO Traffic Americas Inc. “Projects that help scale the energy efficient LED lighting market are critical to increased adoption, and that is just what we are supporting the BACC in doing with the Bay Area Next Generation Streetlight Initiative.”

“LED streetlighting improves community safety, reduces carbon emissions and significantly reduces local government costs, and SWARCO is a true leader in the space,” said Rafael Reyes, Executive Director of the Bay Area Climate Collaborative. “We look forward to this collaboration that will advance the LED lighting market and build economic prosperity in the region.”