The Times Square Ball lit by Philips’s LED technology turns green in
support of Climate Week NYC
AMSTERDAM -- (Business Wire)
Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), the global leader in lighting,
today, in partnership with The
Climate Group, called on every single city and utility around the
world to schedule the switch of their street lighting to LED by 2025.
During the annual Climate
Week NYC proceedings in New York, Philips supported the launch of
The Climate Group’s new major global campaign – “LED = Lower Emissions
Delivered” – to encourage local governments, cities and utilities to
embrace the carbon and cost benefits of switching to LED.
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The Times Square Ball lit by Philips's LED technology turns green in support of Climate Week NYC. (Photo: Business Wire)
“Climate Week NYC is an important milestone on the road to COP21 in
Paris later this year, where world leaders will be urged to act faster
and more decisively in combating climate change,” said Eric Rondolat,
Chief Executive Officer, Philips Lighting. “The demand for energy is
increasing twice as fast as the annual rate of improvement in energy
efficiency, so more ambitious targets are needed. For instance, simply
switching conventional street lighting to LED provides an energy saving
of around 40-50 percent. If you add connected lighting technologies,
such as sensors and software control systems, you save an additional 30
percent while giving the community better lit, safer streets. So we
definitely can meet more ambitious targets while at the same time
improving quality of life.”
A new report, “Support The Big Switch,” published today, reveals that
major cities around the world want to upgrade to LED. It states that
while the technological barriers for switching to LED have been
overcome, cities want more support from Government and financial
institutions to refine business models and financing options to help
make the switch.
In 2013, the city of Los Angeles began the installation of 140,000 LED
street lights and has already reported energy
savings of 63% and cost savings around $8.7 million in 2014. Today,
with the help of Philips, Los Angeles is the first major city globally
to renovate its LED lighting to ‘Connected lighting,’ using a system
that uses mobile and cloud-based technologies. The new system delivers
information so that cities can respond quickly to different situations,
make smarter decisions and realize new operational efficiencies. And
through connected LED lighting, the city has the potential to realize
energy savings of up to 80%.
“There is no longer any reason why the big switch to LED street lighting
shouldn’t start today, accelerating adoption in the US and around the
world,” said Mark Kenber, CEO of The Climate Group. “Our global trials
and stakeholder consultations have shown that, when it comes to tackling
climate change, LEDs are the lowest of the low hanging fruit and easiest
to implement. It’s technically proven, commercially viable, and already
resulting in major savings for cities around the world. With the number
of street lights around the world likely to hit 350
million by 2025, local governments, utilities and financial
institutions need to work together to ensure that all new and existing
street lights are LED – or of equivalent energy efficiency – by 2025.”
As a symbol of this collaboration and commitment and as a visible call
to action for cities around the globe, the iconic Times Square Ball, lit
by 32,256 Philips Luxeon LEDs, has been programmed to display ongoing
variations of the color green interspersed with images of a spinning
planet Earth throughout all of Climate Week NYC.
Notes to editors
About the “Support the Switch” report: Findings in the report are the
result of a two-year consultation by The Climate Group with cities,
following The Climate Group’s global LED street-lighting trials in 12
major cities including New York, London, Kolkata and Sydney. The
consultations were conducted in cooperation with Philips
Lighting.
About Royal Philips:
Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a diversified health and
well-being company, focused on improving people’s lives through
meaningful innovation in the areas of Healthcare, Consumer Lifestyle and
Lighting. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips posted 2014 sales of
EUR 21.4 billion and employs approximately 106,000 employees with sales
and services in more than 100 countries. The company is a leader in
cardiac care, acute care and home healthcare, energy efficient lighting
solutions and new lighting applications, as well as male shaving and
grooming and oral healthcare. News from Philips is located at www.philips.com/newscenter.
About Climate Week NYC
Climate Week NYC is a key event in the international calendar that
brings together leading governments, investors, businesses, innovators
and opinion formers. The
Climate Group launched Climate
Week NYC in 2009, and has acted as the secretariat since its
inception. Host to more than 100 affiliate events from September 21-28,
Climate Week NYC 2015 is the collaborative space for climate events in
support of the UN Summit to adopt the Post-2015 Development Agenda.The
Climate Group is also hosting a Climate Week ‘countdown’ from September
1 until the opening of the week; during which a series of announcements,
report launches and major commitments from business and sub-national
leaders will be made.
Climate Week NYC 2015 is supported by the We Mean Business coalition
members: BSR, The B Team, CDP, Ceres, The Climate Group, The Prince of
Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group and WBCSD.
ClimateWeekNYC.org |
@ClimateWeekNYC | #CWNYC
About The Climate Group
The
Climate Group is an award-winning, international non-profit. Our
goal is a prosperous, low carbon future. We believe this will be
achieved through a ‘clean revolution’: the rapid scale-up of low carbon
energy and technology. We work with corporate and government partners
to develop climate finance mechanisms, business models which promote
innovation, and supportive policy frameworks. We convene leaders, share
hard evidence of successful low carbon growth, and pilot practical
solutions which can be replicated worldwide.
Since 2009, The Climate Group has been the convenor of Climate
Week NYC. In September 2014, Climate Week NYC hosted 150 events as
the collaborative space in support of the UN Climate Summit.
Theclimategroup.org
| @ClimateGroup
| #CleanRevolution
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150924005179/en/
Contacts:
Philips Lighting
Melissa Kanter, 732-563-3994
melissa.kanter@philips.com
Source: Royal Philips
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