Having your (melanopic) cake and eating it?
It’s a tricky trade-off— getting enough photopic lux on the table for visual comfort, melanopic lux at the eye for the body clock, lumens per watt for the planet… all while creating a workspace that feels inviting and comfortable.
So it’s great to read this paper from Bill Chan and the IES that crunches some numbers and comes up with an approach to this equation, concluding that spectral tuning to manipulate the Melanopic Daylight Equivalent Ratio (or MDer) to around 0.8 is the optimum way to deliver a win-win-win in the real world.
There are some interesting assumptions and omissionsL Chan only looks at ‘blue pump’, not ‘full spectrum’ options, and the efficiency calculations are all on a connected load rather than the more accurate (if more complicated) LENI basis – Circadian Lighting in Offices: Feasibility Boundaries and Design Trade-Offs.
But for anyone who is trying to balance the visual, melanopic and sustainability books, it’s definitely worth a read.
Necessity is the mother of invention
Unless you’re directly involved in care, you probably never give a second thought to the 1.5 million people who work away quietly in the background, generating over £60 billion in value – Economic and social value of the UK adult social care sector: England.
Always running on a shoestring means these remarkable professionals have a keen eye for a bargain – and always looking for ways to do more with less.
So I’m looking forward to packed Innovation and technology speaker programme at the Care Show on the 7th and 8th of October, joining the Care’s Got Talent event and after party drinks on the Wednesday evening and of course celebrating the finalists and winners of the National Care Forum’s Innovation Challenge – can’t believe it’s been a year since I was setting up my stall.
If you’re at the NEC, please drop by the Design Build Theatre on the 8th where I’ll be talking about the business case for circadian lighting.