Cfls

Another country is well on the way to making the switch as last week Argentina joined the rapidly growing list of nation states getting ready to use only energy efficient light bulbs.

If the Argentinean president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner gets her way, by the end of 2010 mandatory efficiency standards will be introduced which will effectively ban incandescent bulbs. Better yet, she said her decision came as a direct result of the campaign run by our office in Buenos Aires.

And earlier this year, Italy followed Ireland's example to become the second EU country to propose similar efficiency standards and is also expected to remove incandescents from sale in 2010. All these bulb bans are a small but vital step in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, and introducing minimum energy efficiency standards on all electrical equipment has to be the ultimate goal.

So far in our light bulb campaign, we've bashed companies like Woolworths for not being proactive enough in sweeping inefficient incandescent bulbs from their shelves, but we're also working on more positive angles to demonstrate the plus-points of energy saving light bulbs or compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). One of the frequent excuses used for not switching to CFLs is that they're unattractive/ungainly/ugly/inconvenient (delete as applicable), but that's not so. They now come in an exhaustive variety of shapes, sizes and colours and can be just as aesthetically pleasing as old-fashioned bulbs.

Jason Bruges certainly thinks so. One of the UK's top interactive installation designers, he’s currently working with us on a new work to demonstrate the versatility of CFLs. He's no stranger to low-carbon design projects - his recent installation at the South Bank in London, Wind to Light, featured mini-wind turbines powering hundreds of LEDs, and his studio's latest work will be the front of house feature at this year's 100% Design at Earls Court Exhibition Centre later this month.

Efficiency is the amount of energy an appliance or device uses to get a certain output. The more efficient a device is, the less electricity it uses - and the less climate-changing emissions are pumped into the atmosphere.

The technologies exist for making all sorts of energy efficient products – from light bulbs and TVs to cars and fridges. But, because it’s cheaper and easier for industry to keep churning out the same old products, most of us are still using old, inefficient technologies and unnecessarily damaging the climate.