Timberland’s Lighting Upgrade
Sustainability is fundamental to The Timberland Co., which has committed to reducing its environmental footprint by cutting emissions from its facilities and stores by 50%. The company has identified lighting, which accounts for a significant portion of its total energy use, as a prime source for energy reduction. In 2009, it replaced incandescent and halogen track and flood lighting in many of its stores with LED technology.
“We had been tracking LED technology for a while, and though it was still emerging, we felt we were ready to make the conversion to LEDs based on their progress at that time,” said Al Buell, store planning and construction project manager, Timberland, Stratham, N.H.
Always on the lookout for more efficient technologies, Timberland recently upgraded its lighting again, installing new high-performance LED lamps from Solais Lighting in track and flood applications.
“Timberland executives were committed to using LEDs based on energy efficiency, but they were not getting the desired light output they needed from their first-generation LED lamps,” explained Ryan Hunt, national account sales manager, Standard Electric Supply, Wilmington, Mass., Timberland’s electrical distributor of record. “They wanted an LED lamp that would really draw out the colors in their stores and make their merchandise pop.”
According to Hunt, the aesthetics that Timberland was looking for — along with a much higher lumen output — could be achieved with Solais’ LR38 and LR30 Long-Neck LED lamps. The LEDs have a lumen output of 850 to 1,000, a high color rendering index, strong center-beam candlepower and a lifespan rated at 50,000 hours.
In addition to delivering high performance and superior light quality, the 18 to 21 watts of energy the products consume will enable the retailer to enjoy a 58% to 64% reduction in energy consumption and costs (relative to Timberland’s original 50-watt halogen technology).
Timberland oversaw the installation of 100 to 200 Solais LEDs in each of the four newly constructed stores that it opened between March and June 2011. The retailer also retrofitted a few existing stores with the lamps.
“We love how easy they are to install,” Timberland’s Buell said. “You just screw them right into the existing incandescent or halogen sockets; there’s no fixture change needed.”
According to Buell, green products and practices are always at the forefront of Timberland’s operating decisions.
“As we gain experience and progress with store expansion, we strive to incorporate more environmentally friendly materials in our construction, and energy is always something we consider,” he said. “The efficiency offered by LEDs is great, but we’ve been especially impressed with the Solais lamps, which we feel duplicate the industry’s best-in-class metal halide offering in terms of their light output and color quality, but at a fraction of the energy consumption.”
Buell has identified the Solais LEDs as Timberland’s “go-to” lamps for all new construction and as replacements for the stores’ older lighting technology as it fails. “The color and brightness of the Solais lamps are excellent,” he added. “The store lighting is now exactly where I want it to be.”