Example: Low impact lighting on bank in Kitchener

This CIBC bank in Kitchener, Ontario uses low impact lighting. It’s minimal and is full cut off (light down to the ground) while not overly bright. Just the right amount of light.

Also, the colour temperature of the light is a warm white (3000K or less) which has less negative impacts versus white light (LED) 4000K, 5000K.

In addition the large lit signage on the building is turned off during the overnight hours. 99% of customers are probably at home sleeping and they know where you are located. If a potential customer is going to find you, it will be during the day when the business is open. So leaving large lit signs on all night is just very wasteful and hurts our night ecology.

This is a good example of exterior lighting that reduces light pollution and helps protect our nocturnal environment from the harmful effects of to much light at night.

So why can’t other businesses do the same? Why can’t they have overnight lighting policies that help protect our night and reduce light pollution?

The answer is they can. If businesses (and home owners too!) that are not using low impacted, shielded, outdoor lighting should make the switch or improvements needed.

If they care enough to recycle to help our environment, they should care enough to use low impact lighting at night and turn off lit signs overnight as well as any unnecessary lights. It’s really simple!

Thanks again to this CIBC branch for helping to reduce #lightpollution.

If you are curious this shows you what bad outdoor lighting looks like.