Tracking Track Lights

How much lighting is enough? To begin to find out through experiementation, the IslandWood Green Team resolved recently to model stewardship behaviors by turning off some of the excess ambient lights in our Welcome Center when there was no direct need by a group. We resolved to explain this idea to those who sit a the front desk and encourage them to do the same.

What this has meant for me is looking around a bit more: is a group in the Great Hall? Is an event listed on the whiteboard near the mail room? Are there any staff using the sofas for a meeting spot? Will a group of students be arriving to look at the relief map?

It has also meant getting the pleasure of turning off around 24 lights while thinking about a slightly smaller carbon footprint and expense sheet for our environmentally focused organization.

The trick comes in matching expectations with reality. I was recently told as I was turning the lights off that they should perhaps all stay on since there was an adult group on site. I asked "Are they using this area?" and was told they were not, but they might be "walking through."
At this point I asked if there was enough light for walking through (this area has 15 foot high glass windows on two sides and a large skylight that runs the length of the space), to which my counterpart agreed there was but added that "conferences might not like it," perhaps since they might hear complaints from our adult guests?

We definitely haven't made an IslandWood-wide announcement about trying to reduce the lighting, so any confusion is in part due to a lack of communication. However, I decided to keep the lights off and go from there with opening a discussion about the Green Team rationale for decreasing the lighting and making sure to get our conference team's perspective as well. As usual, there are shades of gray in what good service means, especially when groups are choosing us in part due to our environmental position. More to come once I have the discussion.