As the Covid 19 pandemic swiftly dismantled everyday life around the world and drove us back indoors, the spotlight fell back on the importance of daylight in our well-being.

It has been the driving force behind the lighting industry’s key pandemic trend – human-centric lighting, or to put it simply, lighting that simulates natural daylight.

There’s good reason why it is steadily gaining traction with industry experts.

Lighting’s effects on our circadian rhythms and other biological and emotional responses are manifold. Studies have shown that good lighting can enhance feelings of optimism, alertness and even impact decision-making and metabolism. A University College of London study saw a 20 per cent increase in productivity when circadian lighting was installed in an experimental workplace.

“Human-centric lighting is the best lighting quality you can get and it promotes well-being,” explains Joachim Geiger, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at German lighting company TRILUX, which condenses the benefits of daylight into human-centric lighting fixtures that mimic the colour and temperature of natural daylight.

This is just one of many examples of the lighting industry’s inroads into the well-being market, a feat for the sector recovering from the pandemic’s blow – there’s a 21 per cent drop in market projections for 2025 as compared to pre-Covid-19 estimation.

Despite disruptions to construction and supply chains in terms of production in 2020 and 2021, a bright future is in store for the industry, with the human-centric lighting market alone projecting a growth to $3.6 billion by 2024 from $810 million in 2019, as per a report from Markets and Markets.

Besides human-centricity, smart and connected lighting is also a major trend, says Geiger, along with sustainability, where lighting makes rooms, floor spaces and buildings more sustainable in terms of efficiency, with technology such as heat mapping that helps identify and optimise empty spaces.

With in-depth know-how of lighting amassed over a 100-year legacy, TRILUX is an industry leader across the world including in the Middle East, especially the UAE, where sustainability is an important pillar of future constructions and smart cities.

“Smart cities have a high demand on efficiency, connectivity, safety and environment-friendliness,” says Geiger. “Luckily, lighting can help in each argument, in each direction.”

TRILUX’ smart outdoor lighting and smart city applications are the cream of the crop – it enables light posts and columns to function as charging stations for e-bikes and electric cars, locate parking spaces through their sensors and establish Wi-Fi connection.

Another buzz word that excites lighting industry experts is circularity.

“The whole philosophy of circularity is that you dismantle existing lighting solutions and distinguish which elements can be reused in the building and which can be recycled, instead of disposing them,” explains Vikash Banwarie, Managing Director of Emerging Markets Middle East, India and Asia-Pacific at TRILUX. “Circularity lets you innovate by upgrading the product over time and contribute to a customer’s sustainability targets.”

In normal times, Geiger says TRILUX launches about 20-30 new products in a year, which sometimes is an efficiency upgrade and sometimes is a breakthrough innovation. “We used the pandemic to boost our investment in digital technologies and improve our infrastructure.”

Adapting to the new normal and utilising it as an accelerator has helped TRILUX tide through tough times and retain a loyal customer base.

“We grew close to our customers even in the absence of projects by providing them trainings, conducting virtual meetings that connected industry experts to customers,” explains Banwarie. “We also transferred all our technical know-how online within six weeks and shared this information freely with both existing and potential clients.”

TRILUX’ commitment to the region, and the UAE specifically, has seen the company make Dubai its headquarters for all emerging markets in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. “We celebrate our tenth anniversary in the region this August,” says Banwarie. “We’ve also established a knowledge academy and experience centre here and plan to open sales offices across the region, mainly Saudi Arabia.” But the most important investment, adds Banwarie, is investing in pilot projects to test, learn and co-innovate together with customers.

“This allows us to test in real environments for different applications from schools to hospitals and really involve our customers in developing meaningful solutions.”