Lamps Plus, the largest lighting showroom chain in North America has announced it will close down Pacific Coast Lighting, its 45-year-old wholesale brand of primarily portable luminaires / lamps, later this Spring. Pacific Coast Lighting primarily sold to department stores, furniture stores, and hotels. Pacific Coast Lighting and Lamps Plus both have a Kathy [...]

    The Dallas Market Center is launching a new international expo and support initiative to promote nearshoring production services for the gift, home furnishings, and fashion accessories industries. December 9-11, 2024, the expo will take place at Dallas Market Center, to connect brands, vetted factories, and supply chain providers from Mexico & Latin America. [...]

I’ve recently written about how dual crises in the Suez Canal / Red Sea and the Panama Canal have created chaos, rising cargo prices, and delaying supply chains. More on these dual canal crises can be found here. Now there is some good news for global shipping. As the pandemic eased, global shipping demand outstripped [...]

  There are a several E Ink trends in the display industry that could have implications for lighting:  Smart Surfaces Sustainable Product Development and Environmental Impact Incorporation of signage into Smart Cities. Smart Surfaces Displays of the future will personalize, customize, and provide information on top of other surfaces, making surfaces “intelligent” (or at least [...]

Louisiana’s utility regulators, the Louisiana Public Service Commission, voted in late January to approve creation of the first state-wide, independent, energy efficiency program in the Southeast U.S. The program will have a mission to reduce energy usage and energy bills for both homes and businesses across the state. Measures can include things like insulating buildings, [...]

  Simultaneous and separate crises are occurring at the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal simultaneously. These are the two most important global shipping canals. The Panama Canal is suffering from a drought in the lake that supplies its water. The drought is likely caused and made more severe by climate change. The Suez Canal [...]

  Container shipping rates for important global trade routes have spiked this week due to the combination of Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen, and the recent air strikes against Houthi bases, by the US and UK. There are now shipping industry fears of a prolonged disruption to Red Sea trade routes, one of the busiest [...]

 Three companies in Finland have collaborated to demonstrate the successful commercialization of bio-based packaging materials for light fixtures that are recyclable, plastic-free, and biodegradable. The three companies involved are: Secto Design – a company specializing in sustainable wooden design lamps, moved its Petite product line’s products from traditional fossil-based packaging into new packaging made of [...]

  The Green Proving Ground (GPG) program leverages GSA’s real estate portfolio to evaluate innovative building technologies. The program aims to drive down operational costs in federal buildings and help lead market transformation through the deployment of new technologies. Program goals include sustainability and interagency collaboration. Since 2015, GSA has coordinated the GPG program with [...]