Following his sweeping General Election victory in July 2024, one of the subjects of Sir Kier Starmer’s first speeches as Prime Minister piqued my interest.

Alongside lofty ambitions around security, economic growth and house building, was the importance of harnessing the latest technology to increase government efficiency.

This grabbed my attention because of my recent work at Whitecroft Lighting helping to drive public sector efficiency through lighting innovation.

In 2022, Whitecroft Lighting secured one of the most significant contracts to date, upgrading the lighting across the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) national estate. 

Working in partnership with facilities management giant, Mitie, Whitecroft secured the opportunity to manufacture and supply products to replace outdated and inefficient lighting in 129 Job and Health Assessment Centres and office space across the UK.

Comprising of around 55,000 individual lighting products, the project was not only ambitious in scale and complexity but also allowed Whitecroft to deploy exactly the kind of leading-edge innovation referred to by the Prime Minister – in this case daylight harvesting. 

Organic Response is a smart lighting technology that uses sensors to intelligently maximise the value of natural light across the inside of buildings.

This balance is achieved by constantly monitoring and blending the natural and artificial light in different areas of the building to achieve a consistent optimal level.

Once the benefits of Organic Response were combined with the latest LEDs, the DWP’s lighting energy consumption was reduced by 80%, delivering a massive reduction in cost and carbon, and taking a big chunk out of the DWP’s 45% carbon reduction target.

Although Organic Response is cutting-edge technology, the hardware and software arrived at the DWP sites commissioned and ready to use. This is achieved by pre-engineering the package at our manufacturing facility in Greater Manchester, including the LED luminaires and the sensors that drive smart daylight harvesting.

We also future-proofed the DWP estate’s lighting, leaving it ready for the next generation of smart building upgrades.

This will allow the DWP’s FM to quicky facilitate cloud-based smart building technology, heat mapping and other smart asset management controls at the time of its choosing, delivering further control and efficiencies.

A full case study detailing our work with the DWP is available online.

I have noticed in the news in recent weeks that some high-profile people challenge the validity of net-zero as an ambition and even questioned if it’s possible radically reduce carbon and achieve economic growth. 

In my opinion, our work with the DWP is a perfect response to that question.  

The smart lighting solution is an example of how British innovation and manufacturing can deliver on all levels: reducing bills and supressing carbon whilst contributing to an environment that is optimised for the wellbeing of people.

I am confident that the UK Government will continue to lead from the front on the journey to net-zero, with the latest phase of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme seeing half a billion pounds made available to the market to help reduce energy bills and carbon emissions.

Whitecroft Lighting and I are happy to share the details of our work with the DWP and other examples of relevant projects, to show how we can work with the public sector to find new levels of efficiency.   

Find out more about the DPW lighting retrofit project.

"I am Mark Brunt, Regional Sales Manager leading an experienced team of Lighting Solution Providers in the North West while developing key Strategic Major Project opportunities."

Get in touch with Mark at mark.brunt@whitecroftlight.com