Circular lighting: Making a sustainable difference for retailers

As economies grapple with the pressing challenges of environmental degradation and resource depletion, there is a growing imperative on manufacturers to minimise the environmental impact of the products they produce, sparking a heightened demand for sustainable and environmentally conscious choices.

For retailers, the situation is no different. Retailers, designers, installers, and specifiers are all looking for solutions that can help further the sustainability agenda while ensuring choices speak to concept, style and utility of any retail outlet. Lighting, too, has a role to play.

Circular lighting for retail

As we know lighting for a retail space, it is all about illumination. But there so much more lighting can offer that being functional—it's a powerful tool that shapes the shopping journey, enhances brand perception and can drive emotions, impacting sales. A well-designed lighting concept not only highlights products and their details but also evokes emotions and transforms your store into an immersive, inspiring retail experience.

To ensure lighting meet these criteria, lighting should offer an edge. Just like the impact of circular lighting innovations like 3D printed lights that appeal to today’s conscious shopper. Circular solutions are designed to use fewer materials, consume less energy, which can preserve value, reduce total cost of ownership, and unlock new economic opportunities. Circular lighting solutions include 3-D printed lights, serviceable luminaires, circular components, intelligent asset management and circular services.

Lets dive in

Adopting circular options, goes beyond adopting innovative modern technology; it redefines how we design, produce, and implement lighting solutions in retail spaces, offering a far more sustainable and efficient approach. The benefits are many. From creating engaging, inspiring and flexible areas, to refreshing parts of your shop concept on a regular basis to meet trends, being able to upgrade and reuse parts of the lighting solution enables retailers to make the most effective changes while minimising costs and disruption to the shop, the use cases are many.

Rosé light recipes for meat preservation showcased at EuroShop 2026

Light recipes for a just-harvested look and feel showcased at EuroShop 2026

Enter 3D printed lights: 3D printing is the opposite of ‘subtractive manufacturing’, which is the process of cutting out or hollowing out a piece of material. 3D printing lights enables manufacturers to produce complex shapes using less material than traditional manufacturing methods. It is believed that 3D printing can have a similar revolutionary impact on the lighting market as LED did. A large part of this impact is achieved by producing products more sustainably, making a strong case for sustainable business innovation.

3D printing is a highly flexible, more sustainable form of manufacturing, in which luminaires can be made with raw material that has already been recycled, tailored to the customer’s exact needs and recycled at the end of their life. In 3D printed luminaires, nearly every component may be reused or recycled – thanks to a consistent disassembly concept –supporting the concept of a circular economy, which means moving away from linear production and consumption models, where things are used for a short time and thrown away after use. At the end of the product’s lifecycle, the materials can be easily broken down, then simply shredded and recycled. What’s more, when compared with traditional luminaries, these innovative circular designs use no paint as the lamps are already pigmented, as well as fewer parts, and fewer screws. Moving to 3D printing can, arguably, help us accelerate the shift to an economy that reuses resources wherever possible, making them good for the environment and producing stock on demand, when needed.

In the context of retail, 3D printed lights, as well as benefits relating to sustainability, can offer individualisation, can be tailored to add to the appeal of your store, whether that be the shape, colour or texture of the product. These lights allow co-creation and customisation, providing design freedom and brand identity. This flexibility and design freedom allows for an almost unlimited number of different luminaire shapes – an impossibility with traditional production methods. Another advantage is that of scalability. Retailers can order products at a minimum quantity of thousands of luminaires for deployment across various locations or just one luminaire, making this an even more attractive offer. For example, leading travel company TUI wanted to upgrade its in-store lighting and environmental impact was top of mind. 3D-printed lighting offered a circular solution, perfectly aligned with TUI’s sustainability agenda.

Savings with performance dashboards showcased at EuroShop 2026

3D printed luminaires installed in TUI stores

Serviceable Luminaires: At Signify we created a set of sustainable design rules helping us continuously optimise for circularity and lower the carbon footprint of our lighting products. The first category is Serviceable Luminaires. Serviceability refers to the ability to prolong the technical and economic lifetime of the product, after it has been put into service. Lighting designed for serviceability is designed to meet the evolving needs beyond rated service life from start to finish – including service and repair, upgrades and replacements. These luminaires are around the principles of lighting for Circularity: recyclable, serviceable, energy-efficiency, connectable and upgradable, ensuring a long lifetime with high efficacy.

Another important aspect is that of Circular Components: These components make any lighting sustainable as they are made of recyclable parts, such as drivers, controls, and LED boards and can easily be recycled. Their specifications reach the most rigorous standards for durability and failure rates. And by only having to replace a single component when it breaks or reaches the end of its lifetime, retailers can extend the lifespan of a luminaire beyond the lifespan of its parts, making the lighting a part of their sustainability plans.

The third category is Intelligent Systems which can constantly monitor light fittings. This feature tells us when and where to perform maintenance, cutting down on waste, costs, downtime, and workforce. Further, these systems can optimise light levels; for example, to create the highest levels of energy savings or increase eye comfort, in addition to enhancing the in-store experience for customers. For example, Hoogvliet supermarket has created a differentiated in-store environment in its new store with the installation of LED lighting and sensors controlled by Interact Retail software. The lighting system enables flexibility and enhances the shopper experience while helping the store reduce costs and improve operations.

Savings with performance dashboards showcased at EuroShop 2026

Getting started

Lighting can reduce the environmental impact and elevate the in-store experience with circular lighting solutions. Products, services and systems should aim to minimise waste, improve efficiency and support sustainability goals The best lighting design begins with a detailed plan with a certainty that your investment is worthwhile. Whether you’re aiming to save energy, reduce the risk of accidents in the workplace through improved visibility, refresh your space, improve sales by creating an attractive shopper experience or raise the profile of your brand – lighting can help transform your space to work for both you and your business.

Decluttered ceilings for a modern fashion retail experience showcased at EuroShop 2026

In conclusion

Sustainability is one of the most important issues faced by retailers. Shoppers desire products on the shelves to be sourced, manufactured, packaged and sold sustainably. 40% of them even take sustainability into account for their retailer preference.

And so, the message is clear: Future economic success must go hand in hand with sustainable thinking and action.

Lighting can play a major role in how customers interact with your shop. Choosing circular options opens up unprecedented simple, sustainable, and fast possibilities. Circular choices can illuminate any retail spaces as smartly and sustainably as possible today, creating a long-lasting unique brand- and customer experience.

About the author:

Simon den Uijil

Global Segment Manager, Retail at Signify

About Signify

Signify (Euronext: LIGHT) is the world leader in lighting for professionals and consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things. Our Philips products, Interact connected lighting systems and data-enabled services, deliver business value and transform life in homes, buildings and public spaces. In 2022, we had sales of EUR 7.5 billion, approximately 35,000 employees and a presence in over 70 countries. We unlock the extraordinary potential of light for brighter lives and a better world. We achieved carbon neutrality in our operations in 2020, have been in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index since our IPO for six consecutive years and were named Industry Leader in 2017, 2018 and 2019. News from Signify is located at the Newsroom, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. Information for investors can be found on the Investor Relations page.