BEL · EN More than light The Animal Kingdom The Animal Kindom THEME Light as an environmental factor has an impact on all living creatures. That much we know. Light influ­ences both human and animal emo­tions and behav­iour – includ­ing those of insects and gen­er­ally noc­tur­nal crea­tures such as bats, owls and migra­tory birds. As well as the shift from day­light to dark­ness, moon­light and starlight also play an impor­tant part. Bats, for exam­ple, hunt only at night using echolo­ca­tion. Migra­tory birds nav­i­gate their pas­sage using the stars in the sky. On the water, insects hatch their larvae at night. They are all depen­dent on dark­ness. Dark­ness pro­tects them from heat and hunters, allows them to search for food in safety, pro­vides ori­en­ta­tion, and con­trols bio­log­i­cal cycles – includ­ing repro­duc­tive cycles as we see with the fire­fly. Female fire­flies emit their gentle light signal to the males. If the sur­round­ings are too bright, the males miss the signal and mating fails. Light­ing along water­ways attracts insects in their droves but this is out of bal­ance with nature, and so they are not avail­able as food for fish, birds and bats. Arti­fi­cial light­ing affects the behav­iour of our animal king­dom. We are learn­ing more every day about the true impacts of exte­rior light­ing, and adapt­ing our behav­iour accord­ingly. Bats, for exam­ple, are pro­tected by a raft of bind­ing inter­na­tional and Euro­pean agree­ments (e.g. the Fauna Flora Habi­tat Direc­tive) which also iden­ti­fies light as a rel­e­vant factor. Against this back­ground, sus­tain­able exte­rior light­ing in urban or rural areas must take into account the needs of insects and other ani­mals: Light that looks out for insects A main focus of Selux is the devel­op­ment of Night Sky tech­nolo­gies. LED tech­nol­ogy plus new mate­ri­als and pro­duc­tion processes today give us con­sid­er­ably greater oppor­tu­nity to con­trol the direc­tion, light dis­tri­b­u­tion, dura­tion, inten­sity and spec­trum of lumi­naires. Tar­geted light with a clear cut-off Spe­cially devel­oped optics with a pre­cise down­ward beam enable an even more tar­geted focus. This means that no direct light com­po­nents are radi­ated above the hor­i­zon­tal plane of a lumi­naire. And the star-stud­ded inky black night sky so cru­cial to people, ani­mals and plants is main­tained. Warm colour tem­per­a­tures The com­po­si­tion of light is a deter­min­ing factor as we jour­ney towards sus­tain­able light­ing. Living organ­isms react highly sen­si­tively to spec­tral com­po­si­tions of elec­tro­mag­netic radi­a­tion in the vis­i­ble range, many of them to blue light in par­tic­u­lar. The spec­trum used should there­fore min­imise short-wave light (blue/violet) as much as pos­si­ble. The rec­om­men­da­tion is to install street lights with max­i­mum 3000K. The lower the colour tem­per­a­ture, the more warm tones the light will have, and the less impact it will thus have on the animal king­dom. Wher­ever light­ing and urban devel­op­ment impinge on the habi­tat of sen­si­tive or endan­gered ani­mals, the rec­om­men­da­tion is to use max­i­mum 2 400K or the extremely warm »PC Amber« colour tone. We offer cor­re­spond­ing light colours as stan­dard in our new prod­uct ranges. Reduced light inten­sity Light should be no brighter than it needs to be. Where pos­si­ble, nor­ma­tive spec­i­fi­ca­tions should not be exceeded. Illu­mi­nated sur­faces also play a role: some mate­ri­als reflect more light back into the night sky than others. Every last detail counts here — we ensure that our lumi­naires do not light up their poles as well, for exam­ple. Con­trolled light­ing Light that adapts to the cir­cum­stances: it’s there when you need it and not when you don’t. Light­ing should be oper­a­tional accord­ing to use. Motion sen­sors or timer con­trols ensure light is pro­vided at the right time, and is oth­er­wise dimmed or switched off com­pletely. EXPLORE ALL THEMES Landscape Design Light Quality The Animal Kingdom Design Materiality Solar Smart City Electromobility Get in touch We look forward to realise extraordinary projects with you. Selux contacts Email us Lights Products Cases Configurators Company Profile Sustainability Contacts International Contacts Germany Career Social Instagram Linkedin Pinterest Selux Benelux N.V. Grote Steenweg 50 B-2550 Kontich Waarloos Mobile: +32 477 99 61 72 E-Mail: info@selux.be Selux Worldwide International Austria Belgium Australia Canada France Germany Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Sweden Turkey United Kingdom Imprint data protection Imprint Terms & Conditions © 2021 Selux Language Top Just like other websites, we use cookies to improve and personalize your experience. We collect standard Internet log information and aggregated data to analyse our traffic. Our preference and marketing cookies allow us to adapt our content and ads to our audience interests. Reject All Accept All More Options