Nordic-powered Acuity Brands smart lighting saves over two million tons of CO2 emissions since 2016

The ultra low power Nordic nRF51 and nRF52 Series Bluetooth Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) inside Acuity's LED lighting luminaires and controllers are said to have been critical in enabling large savings in greenhouse gas emissions compared to the previous lighting they replaced

Nordic Semiconductor today announces that leading U.S. smart lighting and building solutions company, Acuity Brands, Inc., has identified the industry-leading, ultra low power performance of Nordic's Bluetooth® Low Energy (LE) SoCs has played a critical role in saving over 2.3 million tonnes of CO2 emissions from six million of its smart lighting deployments since 2016.

The CO2 emission reduction is based on a calculation of lower fossil fuel-generated energy consumption of the new Acuity lights compared with the energy consumption of the previous lighting solutions.

Energy savings reduce emissions

Acuity says the Nordic Bluetooth SoCs play a critical role in eliminating emissions by reducing the power consumption of the smart luminaire lighting fixtures by 40 Watts while they’re in use. Nordic’s industry-leading ultra low power consumption wireless chips bring further emission reductions by enabling a 25 percent energy saving from Acuity’s smart lighting controllers compared to previous models.

Sustainability requires every single joule of energy to be conserved where it can be conserved, and Nordic wrote the book on energy-efficient short-range wireless chips

Adam Handler, Acuity Brands

"Acuity delivers outstanding power consumption savings to our customers with our smart and connected LED lighting technologies. Sustainability requires every single joule of energy to be conserved where it can be conserved, and Nordic wrote the book on energy-efficient short-range wireless chips. The leading ultra low power and capabilities of the Nordic Bluetooth LE SoCs allow us to maximize these savings," explains Adam Handler, Director of Corporate Sustainability at Acuity Brands.

"Manufacturing IoT solutions will contribute to greenhouse gas emissions," says Nasrin Ghanbari, Sustainability Manager at Nordic. "But Nordic strives to minimize the impact the production of our solutions has on the global environment while also working towards making them highly efficient and ideal for applications that support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“We are confident that over their full lifetime, many Nordic-powered applications will deliver a net positive impact on emissions compared to not using the advantages of the IoT. Acuity has provided a real example of how this happens in practice with its smart lighting."

Striving for progression of UN SDGs

In alignment with its commitment to UN Global Compact’s ambitions for advancing sustainability, Nordic strives for progression of UN SDGs through all its business operations.

Nordic high performance multiprotocol SoCs, for example the nRF5340, nRF52840, nRF52833, and nRF52820, and supporting software solutions fulfill all the connectivity and performance demands of the lighting industry.