B4 SPOTLIGHT
WILA With operations based in Iserlohn, Germany and Wantage in the UK, WILA, is a leading specialist for quality lighting enhancing the visual environment through high performance, energy efficient and sustainable products. WILA are the company of choice for many designers of offices and public buildings worldwide.
In the past few years, in spite of the difficult economic conditions, WILA has continued to grow and expand, not only increasing turnover and employee numbers, but also geographic coverage. Today WILA has over one hundred and thirty staff engaged in the design, development, manufacture, and marketing of technical lighting products, selling its lighting services to over forty countries around the world, from Australia to Russia and from the
above). WILA sees this opportunity as significant in terms of new product development and also in terms of refurbishment and upgrading of existing lighting installations.
practice, and are kept up-to-date with technological developments. This is vital to ensure that everyone understands the significance of lighting and the role that lighting can play in all types of buildings.
“The opportunity to lower both energy consumption and reduce carbon emissions is one that should not be missed, especially as it is also an opportunity to improve the overall benefits provided by better lighting, higher productivity, more positive surroundings, reduced absenteeism,
“WILA is a major brand in the lighting industry and we believe that we have an important part to play through innovation and a commitment to sustainable lighting. We continue to develop, train and encourage all of our teams across the UK and Germany and utilise the IIP framework to achieve
“good lighting is vital, and we are recognising the increasingly important emphasis placed on lighting and how it can bring the best out of staff” Middle East to the USA. WILA products can be seen in many prestigious locations. Among the many interesting and challenging projects are work at Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport, a further phase at Hamburg Airport and an extension to Dubai Airport. WILA have also supplied products to the Qatar Museum, the Caja Magica Tennis Stadium in Madrid, Google’s Offices in Munich and Astra Zeneca’s Offices in Manchester. In the past three years, WILA has seen an average growth of some 20% year on year, and CEO Mike Collett sees this as an indication that lighting in general has an important part to play in modern building design. “From an occupant’s perspective, good lighting is vital, and we are recognising the increasingly important emphasis placed on lighting and how it can bring the best out of staff. “The lighting industry is an exciting place to be right now, as we enter a phase of highly disruptive technological development with the introduction of new LED based lighting (such as Exilum pictured
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and many other indirect employee benefits. “WILA has adopted many initiatives to ensure that not only do our products perform well but that they do so in an efficient, environmentally friendly and sustainable manner; we take our own responsibility in this area very seriously. Our businesses in the UK are carbon neutral, through the carbon footprint offset program, we use energy at our factory in Germany supplied from sustainable and renewable sources, our products comply with EuP (Energy using Products) and other environmental legislation such as WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), and we are registered to EN ISO 14001, the environmental management system.” Director Claire Styles explains how WILA ensures its network of contacts is kept up to date with the latest developments in the lighting industry. “We run many seminars and educational activities to ensure that the designers, consulting engineers, architects and interior designers that we work with have the latest information on good lighting
this. In May 2010, Mike will take up an additional role as President of the Lighting Industry Federation (LIF); the UK’s main representative organisation for lighting, the LIF represents the lighting industry at government level and is involved in developing European standards for lighting. “Our UK Group Technical Director, Peter Le Manquais, is active in many technical boards, such as the Lighting Industry Federations and the LED Applications Group, which is looking at setting standards for new LED products and defining how best these new products can be used to enhance buildings with minimal environmental impact. “WILA is at both the forefront of new technology and has the opportunity to influence new thinking. WILA is innovative and believes in a sustainable approach to everything it does, and our products deliver the right performance in an efficient and effective way.” www.wila.com
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