Mission

Of all the stones hurtling through space, Planet Earth is the only one known to support life.

From photosynthesis to human brain function, without light, everything is nothing.

Light is what we do, the planet is why we do it the way we do.

- Factorylux

What this nice poetry means is that we address catastrophic unsustainability in the lighting industry by designing, making and promoting a new kind of architectural lighting.

Our early work was funded by the specifications of a small but growing niche of architects, designers and building engineers who support a closed-loop approach to manufacturing and kindly leveraged their purchasing power to help us achieve it.

The first products were a little janky, but proof of concept for important new ideas. Along the way, we figured out how to refine and improve the designs, make them cost-effective, finesse the Revit and photometric data easier and other useful things like that.

The important consequence of our work today is that any industry professional, anywhere, who is ready to specify seriously scientifically sustainable lighting, can.

Sustainable retail facade lighting by Factorylux at the turbine hall Apple Store at Battersea Power Station

Phase 1 - Complete ✔️

The first part of our mission was to prove it’s possible to phase out plastics, paints, powder coatings, adhesives and composites from the bodies and packaging of all light fittings and lighting track (basically everything except the electronics - which is our next milestone 👇). Thus is the first ever lighting closed-loop, benefits include:

~~Human / environment health gains throughout the product lifecycle by removing VOC's, microplastics, and other toxic materials.~~
~~Closed-loop reuse. Lights and lighting track can (and should) be returned to our factory, for disassembly and reprocessing into 'new' components~~

~~The methodology we developed to make this possible (including patent GB2107349.9) is low-energy, zero-pollution and absolutely commercially viable versus the cost of making new components.~~

~~Stone-Rumbled™Make-Unmake™Magic-Packaging™Magic-Paint™~~
~~Even if product is not returned to us, it's set up for the best possible local recycling outcome, wherever you are in the world.~~

Phase 2 - In process❗️

It's time to fix the electronic aspects (LED, drivers, etc)

Define unit failures at PCB level
Improve field-repairability
Remove plastics, paints, powder coatings, adhesives, composites

We don't make the electronics ourselves (only a tiny number of the very biggest manufacturers do) but within our products, they're the highest value ingredient with the dirtiest footprint (by far). Even the most premium electronics (we use these) will fail eventually, and when they do, they're irreparable (planned obsolescence) and the myriad junk chemistry trapped inside the complex composites is doomed to enter our land sea or air (where else could it go?).

This is a bigger, more complex and consequential piece of work than phase 1. We couldn't have done it first or we simply wouldn't be here today - we would not have been taken seriously and our pockets were not deep enough to cover the commercial cost of that.

We’re older and wiser now, we make fewer missteps than those early days and the revenue we generated en route is a very important part of our story. Even smaller production set-ups like ours are costly and we couldn't have done that without the support of lighting specifiers everywhere. Thank you.

So that's the mission. It's definitely inclusive and if you like the sound of what we're doing, we hope you'll choose to get involved any way you can.

From connecting on social media to trusting us with your architectural lighting projects, we're here to connect with people who share our strong desire to build a sustainable lighting industry.

Thank you,

Sophie, Stan and all of Team Factorylux.

Humble beginnings: Managing Director Sophie Gollop in early 2000's. Factorylux started out in a London flat, disassembling and reworking redundant industrial light fittings to give them a second-life.