Bespoke software helps customers act more sustainably

Instalco’s technical consulting company Zenisk, a subsidiary of Intec, specialises in the niche area of lighting design. The company has developed a bespoke tool in the form of customised software to measure, understand and demonstrate the sustainability effect of design-related and technical lighting choices. The software helps their customers to make more sustainable decisions and reduce their energy costs.

Zenisk focuses on four pillars within sustainability: wellbeing, circularity, energy savings and light pollution. Developed during the pandemic, the Saved software was a response to Zenisk’s lack of a suitable tool to calculate and demonstrate to customers the impact of different lighting choices on these four pillars. So they came up with their own solution. 

“We could see that lighting offered enormous potential for savings, in terms of both money and carbon emissions. The software enables us to help customers act more sustainably. By working with the installers, we can generate significant benefits for the customers and the environment. And this area offers considerable potential, because lighting accounts for a high share of total energy consumption,” says Kristin Bredal, CEO and Creative Director at Zenisk in Oslo.

One of Zenisk’s recent projects involved refurbishing the street lighting in the centre of Moss, for which the company won the Sustainability Category at the 2023 Norwegian Lighting Awards. 

The jury’s citation reads as follows: 
“The project to restore the street lighting in the centre of Moss is a good example of how to successfully incorporate multiple sustainability aspects. Good interaction between client, consultant, supplier and manufacturer helped Zenisk to come up with a solution that was not only much more energy-efficient than the original, but simultaneously elevated the quality in a way that enabled the new system – despite the traditional aesthetic – to deliver light levels, colour reproduction and comfort aligned with current needs and expectations. Retaining the traditional appearance by reusing the existing light fittings was an important goal, and the new lighting now helps to show the historical town environment to best effect.”

“Before we got involved in the project, Moss municipality had planned to replace all the fittings with new ones. But when we showed them how we could preserve the historical environment by retaining all the original fittings, they sat up and took notice.” 

Reduced energy consumption by 90 percent
Zenisk refurbished the actual light source, replacing it with LED lighting in 177 lamp posts while retaining all the fittings. This has reduced energy consumption by 90 percent compared with the previous lighting. Light pollution has also decreased substantially.

“Carrying out this type of project relies on having all the players throughout the value chain on board. This is why it’s important to work with suppliers, engineers, building proprietors and customers. Being part of Instalco makes a big difference too, because we can collaborate at all stages of the process, from system design to finished solutions. This benefits everyone.”
Zenisk is a subsidiary of Intec with niche expertise in lighting design, which covers multiple areas: technical, conceptual, aesthetic and social. 

“More and more people are concerned about carbon emissions but only a small number of customers realise you can measure them. In the near future, I also envisage competition between building proprietors to include this in their offering so that they can show that their building has taken sustainability into account, including with regard to lighting.”