New lamps in old jackets – Signify donates lighting to secondhand stores across the Netherlands

May 31, 2021

To celebrate the international day of sustainability, Signify and Vattenfall donated 47.000 Philips LED lights to around 200 secondhand stores across the Netherlands.

Mark van Zon, Consumer Director at Signify Benelux explains that “only 23% of the lamps people have in their homes are LED lighting. Most of the lamps in the house are still halogen, energy saving, or even incandescent lamps.”

However, LED bulbs have a much lower impact on the environment, as they use up to 90% less electricity than a regular lamp. In the long term, it pays to replace old lamps with LED, even if they still work. The energy it takes to make a new LED lamp is recovered within 300 burning hours, and on average, 92% of the materials of the old lamps are recovered through recycling.

As van Zon says, “Switching to LED can mean an average of 90 kg less CO2 emissions per year per household, and about 10 euros savings on energy costs per lamp! The more people we reach with that message, the better. That’s why we’re very enthusiastic about this collaboration with Vattenfall. We hope that today, many will make use of the opportunity to buy a used fixture from one of the thrift shops of the Dutch Trade Association Kringloopbedrijven Nederland (BKN), equipped with a free energy-efficient Philips LED lamp.”

Thrift shops play an important role in society, even more so in economically challenging times. “Not only do we stimulate reuse, which is good for the environment, but we also make furniture or books available to a wide audience with a smaller wallet,” says Leonie Reinders, director of BKN, responsible for the 100% Kringloop-quality mark.

Thanks to this campaign, and to the voluntary efforts of Vattenfall and Signify employees, we can help people to save money and contribute to sustainability.

Cindy Kroon, Customer Director at Vattenfall says “There is a lot of talk about the feasibility and affordability of the energy transition. As a company, we want to make it possible to live fossil-free; this means that we ourselves invest heavily in new, sustainable energy production. We also help consumers to make their own contributions to combat climate change within their means. The fact that thanks to our collaboration with Signify we can do this with Philips LED lamps is great: after all, the cleanest energy is unused energy! Doing this while our volunteers help thrift shops as well is what makes me extra proud.”

In total, 46,328 Philips LED lamps were handed out to the thrift shops – meaning that a total of 167 tons of CO2 per year have been saved.