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Recently, I wrote a blog post for the Daylight Academy about the importance of good light in buildings for well-being and health of the users. Good light has been defined by our Group as daylight or electric light with comparable positive influence on our biological clock. This makes you sleep better, more fit during daytime and gives you a better mood. Especially important during the #covid19 pandemic now so many people spend their lives at #homeoffice. See also: https://daylight.academy/blog/good-light-for-vital-and-healthy-environments/ Good indoor environments contribute to health and well-being. But why is light indoors still “biological darkness”? People believe that light is good when you can see properly. No one realizes however, that good light is also crucial for our bodies to function well. Worldwide people spend more than 90% of their lives indoors, in schools, offices, factories, hospitals, care homes, shops, homes etc. because they have indoor jobs or activities. In all these places the light is usually good enough to see, but it is too weak to have a positive influence on our biological clocks. Good light indoors is the forgotten factor that can create a quantum leap in the improvement of well-being of people. Installing good light is a very cost effective and sustainable way to make indoor environments healthier and more attractive for people. In 2002, specific photosensitive cells in the retina (ipRGCs) of the human eye were discovered which have a direct connection to the brain centres which regulate the biological clock and mood. These cells look like “spheres” and are only effectively triggered at higher light levels than photoreceptors used for vision, te rods and cones. The intensity of the light must be at least five times higher to have a positive influence on your brain and body. Current indoor light levels are designed for visual tasks by the cones and rods in the retina. While the high light levels necessary for supporting our brain and our body seem unnaturally high indoors, we must realize that mankind has the biology of an outdoor diurnal mammal. The light level outdoors during daytime is ten to one hundred times more intense than indoors. Therefore, the current light levels indoors are darkness from a biological point of view: “biological darkness”. Because we live in biological darkness the whole day, our internal biological clock is not well synchronised with the real time. The consequence is that the duration and quality of our sleep at night is not as good as it should be. Good sleep has an enormous positive influence on performance during daytime. Low quality sleep results in feeling sleepier during daytime, feeling less able to concentrate, less creative, and less alert. It also influences our mood. We often develop depressed feelings. An effective way to synchronize our personal biological clock is to spend a couple of hours outdoors every day, especially in the morning. For most of us who stay indoors all day, the alternative is a well-lighted environment indoors which supports our visual needs as well as our well-being. We call this “good light”. Good light is daylight or electric light with the same positive effects on brain and body. Important is to provide the right light at the right moment of the day. The best way to realize this is by allowing daylight into a building. However, the intensity and thus the positive effect of daylight decreases rapidly when the distance to the windows increases. The lack of intense daylight in those places in homes and buildings must be compensated by electric light that mimics the positive effects of daylight. Good light is an easy way to improve the well-being and health of more than six billion people living daily in biological darkness! Good light is the most underrated factor to improve well-being in buildings. If you want to learn more, please contact the Good Light Group. Jan Denneman Chair Good Light Group

We are an employee-owned, specialist manufacturer of architectural luminaires, founded in 1995. We manufacture everything to order, by hand, at our premises in Edinburgh, Scotland. Our range of standard products are often complemented by project-specific bespoke solutions. We are continually developing to keep up with the best of emerging technologies and the latest expectations of forward-thinking lighting designers. Such trends include sustainable manufacturing and design for circularity (which have always been part of our culture), biophilia, circadian lighting systems, eliminating as far as possible light pollution, and controls. Where do all these tributaries converge? We look forward to working with The Good Light Group in this search. One thing is certain - that light itself is the start of everything. Left in the picture is Dave Hollingsbee, Managing Director and right is Ali Kay, Technical Director.

The mornings and evenings are getting dark again, which is especially noticeable because we are now working from home more often. Where you normally spend your day in the office with fluorescent or LED lighting from the ceiling, which is in most cases not bright enough to improve your alertness, mood and your sleep at night, you now probably have to do with only a desk lamp and a cosy shaded floor lamp in your ‘home office’. Although this may be enough to see, there is a very low light intensity entering your eyes, even lower maybe than in your main office. This may have clear negative consequences for health, mood and well-being. Dutch television broadcaster RTLnieuws brought up this item online and in a TV documentary on September 5th. Good Light Group participant Sparckel demonstrated their solution for the home or office workplace and Karin Smolders, representing our scientific participant from the Technical University Eindhoven and Marijke Gordijn from the board of the Good Light Group were interviewed. Link online item (in Dutch): https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/editienl/artikel/5181778/thuiswerken-kantoor-licht-lux-verlichting Link TV item (in Dutch): https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/editienl/laatste-videos-editienl/video/5181821/thuiswerker-onderschat-licht

During and shortly after vacation, most people usually feel more relaxed, sleep better and are upbeat. But that pleasant vacation feeling disappears quickly when you are back in normal life. Many people have almost forgotten that they went on vacation after one or two weeks. Sound familiar? Vacation time is important for people to wind down, to forget the worries from daily life and to recharge the batteries. During vacation time, many people do other things than usual. You may like an active vacation like exploring other cultures, cities, countries, landscapes, hiking, biking, swimming, skiing or a more passive vacation like reading or relaxing at a beach. Most people spend much more time outdoors during vacation than during their normal life. After a couple of days, they feel less stressed, start sleeping better and deeper and even dream more. Dreaming more is interpreted as a sign of good quality sleep. They feel happier and in a better mood; they get a vacation feeling. Unfortunately, that vacation feeling only lasts a short time after you readapt to your normal life. People almost forget that they went on vacation after one or two weeks. Do you recognize this yourself? Of course, an important reason is that the challenges, deadlines, time pressures etc. of daily life return. But there is another reason as well. Most people spend their normal lives indoors and indoors is biological darkness. While on vacation, you spend much more time outdoors than normal. Your body gets the natural daylight it needs to synchronize your biological clock. Outdoors, the light intensity is strong enough to trigger special cells in the retinae of the eye. These cells transmit information about the time of day directly into the brain centres, and the brain sends this time information to all cells in the body. In this way, your body stays properly synchronized with the real time, the sun clock. A well-synchronized biological clock has many advantages. The quality of sleep at night improves. During the daytime you feel less sleepy and are more focused, more alert, more creative. Your mood lifts. This is exactly what happens when you are on vacation. Back in normal life, most people spend their time indoors. The light level is usually good enough to see, but it is far too low to support synchronizing the biological clock. Indoors means “biological darkness”. After a couple of days, your body gets out of sync with the real time. This is a very important reason why your nice relaxed feeling after vacation disappears so quickly. Fortunately, with current LED technologies indoors, you can mimic the positive aspects of natural light. We call this good light. Good light indoors can give you that pleasant relaxed feeling all year round, and it improves your well-being and health. Happy people need good light! If you want to learn more, please contact the Good Light Group. Jan Denneman Chair Good Light Group

Today we welcomed Medilux as Participant of the Good Light Group. MediluX has over 20 years of experience in lighting project implementation and advice in the 24/7 environment and in health care environments. Science driven protocols to apply the right light at the right time for safety and health are their core business. Medilux is international supplier for lighting projects in control rooms in the petrochemical industry. Medilux is a partner of Honeywell, and has participated in user committees in several scientific projects of the faculty of Science and Engineering of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

Recently Luger Research joined as Participant of the Good Light Group. Luger Research publishes the bi-monthly magazine “LED professional Review” and the bi-weekly “LED professional Newsletter”. They organized the “LED professional Symposium +Expo” and “Trends in Lighting Forum &Show” from 2010 to 2019 and this year they premiere the first global digital lighting conference platform, “LpS Digital”. Luger Research brings a wealth of experience in communication and reporting the beneficial aspects of good light, staying true to their motto: Exploring Light for a Better Future. https://www.lugerresearch.com/

We are very happy that Novalogy Inc joined as Participant of the Good Light Group. Novalogy Inc. is a leader in the wearable light therapy field. Their mission is to provide solutions, data and inspiration for people to lead healthier, happier and more active lives. The flagship product AYO is an award winning wearable device that helps people have more energy, sleep better and improve overall wellbeing. AYO has been sold in over 100 countries, featured in many of the biggest media outlets and used by some of the most prominent athletes, leaders, researchers and companies in the world. https://goayo.com/

We are very happy that Fluxplus has joined as Participant. FluxPlus BV from Tilburg (the Netherlands) is specialized in Human Centric Lighting design and lighting advice for industry, healthcare and top sport. The subsidiary Chrono Eyewear BV is the producer of the successful App controlled Propeaq light glasses that are used during the night shift and to reduce the effects of jet lag. More than 750 Olympic athletes from 14 countries successfully use this innovative product. In the coming years, a healthy lifestyle will become an important phenomenon and daylight and the right artificial light, what the Good Light Group is promoting, will make a major contribution to improving sleep, mood and the metabolism of large groups of people. https://fluxplus.com/

We are very happy that GL OPTIC has joined as Participant. GL Optic is an innovative Polish-German manufacturer of precise light measuring instruments and solutions for general lighting, electronic, automotive and scientific applications. GL OPTIC is very much focused on supporting good light with measurement equipment for the quality aspects of light. GL Optic products are made in Europe, sold and serviced on all continents. https://gloptic.com/

Recently, we welcomed LYS Technologies as Participant of the Good Light Group. Founded in London 2016 with a mission to reimagine how we live and work indoors, LYS Technologies works across wearable technology, data aggregation and analysis and circadian rhythm research. The LYS team is made up of designers, engineers, developers, data-analysts and writers. Together we are working to simplify and make accessible discussions around circadian rhythms. To put it simply, we are working to tackle global sleep disruption by changing people's relationship to the non-visual effects of light. https://lystechnologies.co.uk/pages/about-us-1

LpS Digital is the brand new, unique, and first, digital lighting conference and exhibition 24/7 available to viewers. Due to environmental issues and travel restrictions, the acclaimed LpS Symposium +Expo and Trends in Lighting Forum &Show held in Bregenz, Austria, has been remodeled into the LpS Digital. Jan Denneman has been one of the first presenters to record a presentation for LpS Digital about the importance of Good Light indoors. Summary Our world would not exist without the light and energy of the sun. Homo sapiens has evolved under this sun and therefore it is logical that we still need a lot of daylight to function optimally. Many thousands of years mankind indeed lived outside, but the modern human being spends most of its life indoors. In offices, schools, factories, hospitals, care homes, nursery homes, shops, private homes, trains, cars etc. In those places, light is usually good enough to see, but biologically it is darkness. Our body and brain need much higher lighting levels during daytime to steer important biological processes in the body like for instance the biological clock. Around the turn of the century, important discoveries were done that explain the mechanisms behind the effects of light on people. In 2002, the 3rd photoreceptor in the human eye has been discovered. The Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology in 2017 went to the scientists carried out breakthrough work in the field of chronobiology, the knowledge about 24 hour rhythms and sleep in our body. Irrespective the progress made in these scientific fields, it is currently still not reflected in how we design and light up our indoor spaces. Consequently, mankind still lives in biological darkness. The chronic light shortage has all kinds of bad consequences. People are less concentrated, alert, creative and their cognitive abilities are reduced. The quality of sleep is worse and people develop feelings of depression. Because most people do not have an outdoor job and as a result spend most of their lives indoors, we need to drastically improve the way we design our indoor spaces. Much more daylight needs to enter buildings and the electric lighting needs to compensate for the lack of natural daylight. The LED technology makes this possible in a sustainable way. The future of light is not any longer in energy efficiency alone. The energy efficiency with smart LED systems is already extremely high, and the lighting sector has been one of the highest contributors to energy efficiency and sustainability. The difference in energy efficiency and related cost savings between the lighting companies is small, and does not create a competitive edge. The attempts to change business models towards data and connectivity are only partly successful. The future of lighting is to focus on the real added value of good light. Good light will contribute to the well-being of the billions of people with an indoor job. If these users of indoor light would know and understand how important lighting is for their well-being, they will demand better lighting from building owners, facility managers, etc. This will create a pull for good light. This requires value-added selling capabilities, and communication to a wide public about the benefits of good light indoors. And it also creates an enormous opportunity for new innovations and for companies to create a competitive edge with their solution for Good Light.

Good Light indoors has spectral characteristics that vary according to time of day, personal needs, and specific tasks. In the morning and during daytime, the light spectrum should include a reasonable portion of short wavelengths to support the energizing and revitalizing effects of light. In the evening and at night, the amount of short wavelengths should be diminished to support winding down, a good night of sleep and to prevent disruptions of the day-night rhythm. To create a good lighting design, you need to be able to calculate the ‘melanopic EDI’ vertically at eye level. This parameter is introduced in the international standard CIE S 026:2018 CIE System for Metrology of Optical Radiation for ipRGC-Influenced Responses to Light. The CIE has recently launched a free of charge S 026 Toolbox and S 026 User Guide to support the use of this international standard. A short video has been prepared to give some background information on the Toolbox and some brief instructions on how to use it.