ECO Design regulation: news of our industry’s petition to save stage lighting.

‘Theatres will not go dark due to ECO design rules’

On 20 June 2018, the period of public consultation for the proposed ECO design regulation – that will affect lighting products of all types – expired. The EU DG Energy department has passed on a revised draft to the next stage of the legislative process. We expect to know its content within a few weeks as it progresses through the committee stages of the process of turning it into a law. Although much still remains to be known, the situation now is far more positive than many had feared and greatly improved since our public meetings earlier this year. 

Our petitioning team made a clear case for exemptions for our industry – including for stage, studio, film and live event purposes – and we have received strong indications that the main arguments of the case have been accepted. There will be a list of exempted lamp base types that will include many of the specialised tungsten and discharge lamps we use.  We can expect the list to be comprehensive, but we should also expect that a few types we have been using will not be exempted if they are in use for other common non-entertainment purposes.  There will be an exemption for colour-tunable light sources, but the details have not yet been provided.

The text of the regulation will be published publicly in November this year and is to be enacted in law in September 2020. More specific details will be available shortly, and these will be disseminated as soon as they are confirmed. There may be more work to do and more details to clarify but, until we see the revised draft, it would be prudent to remain calm and patient.

Adam Bennette (PLASA), Christian Allabauer (OETHG), Randell Greenlee (VPLT) & Silke Lalvani (PEARLE), on behalf of the Professional Entertainment Lighting Products ECO design task group.

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