The Broadway Green Alliance, a group founded in 2008 to promote environmentally beneficial practices within the theatre community and entertainment industry, has been compiling information about live performance lighting instruments within its BGA Greener Lighting Guide.
“As live entertainment interest in greener alternatives increases, decision makers need access to clear and concise information about lighting instruments and environmental claims,” the site notes. “Our goal is to make comparing potential greener alternatives simpler and faster whether you’re a producer, a technical director, or a lighting designer.”
The guide, which can be found online at broadwaygreen.com/green-lighting-guide, is a work in progress, gathering information from manufacturers and responding to the needs of end-users. Its mission is to help end users compare fixture options touted for minimal environmental impact.
The guide begins by breaking lighting fixtures into different categories — starting with profile spot light, fixed beam wash light, automated moving spot light and strip light categories.
Visitors to the BGA Greener Lighting Guide can peruse written descriptions of each “green” product — how it compares with conventional, not-so-green alternative fixtures, in terms of performance characteristics, cost and environmental impact.
Beyond that written description, site visitors can find quantified performance metrics and links to reviews and comments for each “green” fixture.
By clicking on the “Profile Spot Light” category, for example, site visitors will find the conventional ETC Source Four, a fixture that has established itself as a industry standard of sorts, with “greener” alternatives.
There are currently four fixtures listed up against the ETC Source Four — Chauvet Professional’s Ovation E-190WW, Robert Juilat’s TIBO Zoom Profile, Philips Selecon’s PLPROFILE 1 LED and ETC’s own “green” alternative, the ETC Source Four LED Lustr+.
The first manufacturer to provide information about products in each of the four categories is Chauvet Professional.
“This environmental initiative is very important to us as individuals and as a company,” said Albert Chauvet, president of Chauvet Professional. “We believe this is an important step our industry can take to help protect the planet for future generations.”
The company’s Ovation LED line is represented in several categories — the Ovation E-190WW ellipsoidal spot, for example, is listed in the profile spots section, while the Legend 230SR Beam and the Q-Spot 460 LED are in the automated moving spot category. The company’s Legend 412 and Legend 412Z appear in the automated moving beam section.
Other Chauvet Professional products represented in the Greener Lighting Guide include: the COLORado Batten 144 Tour, COLORado Batten 72 Tour, COLORado Batten Quad-9 Tour, the IP-rated linear wash fixture COLORado 4 IP, the COLORado 2-Quad Zoom Tour and 2-Quad Zoom VW Tour, the COLORado 1 Tri-7 Tour and the COLORado 1-Quad Tour.
In the Fixed Beam category, Chauvet Professional ’s Nexus 4×4, which won a 2013 Parnelli Indispensable Technology (IT) Award, is joined by the more recently released Nexus 1×4 and Nexus 2×2. The company’s new pixel mapping LED beam products, Nexus Affinity Aw7x7 and Aq5x5 are also represented.
“Lighting professionals need a variety of different types of products to create compelling designs,” said Chauvet. “Our goal is to be able to offer them an environmentally friendly alternative every step of the way.”
Another manufacturer with products listed in multiple categories is German Lighting Products (GLP). Their GLP Impression Wash One, GLP Impression X4 and GLP Impression X4S are profiled in the fixed beam wash light category and the GLP Impression Spot One is included in the automated moving spot light category.
James Bedell, a New York-based LD who has played a key role in the Broadway Green Alliance’s development, notes that “one of the biggest lessons the BGA has learned from its partnership with the NRDC [National Resources Defense Council] is the concept that there is no ‘green,’ only ‘greener than the day before.’ It’s in that spirit that we decided to launch the Greener Lighting Guide.”
For more information, go to www.broadwaygreen.com.