A Pragmatic Approach to Lighting Policy Incorporating Behaviour: The Example of Light Pollution

Tomas Gerasimidis, Scott Rayburg and John Rodwell ()
Additional contact information
Tomas Gerasimidis: School of Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, John St, Hawthorn, Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia
Scott Rayburg: School of Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, John St, Hawthorn, Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia
John Rodwell: School of Business, Law and Entrepreneurship, Swinburne University of Technology, John St, Hawthorn, Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 19, 1-20

Abstract: The use of light at night may contribute to the inappropriate or excessive use or presence of artificial light known as light pollution. Light pollution wastes huge amounts of electricity and money and contributes to global warming as well as having significant impacts on wildlife. There is a recognition that many of the issues that drive light pollution should be engaged by local, often pragmatic, governments. Lighting policies need to manage light pollution while also providing the intended services. To achieve this, local governments could develop policies and interventions in terms of three main considerations: functionality, technology, and the behaviours that comprise social usage. To determine to what extent this is being done, the lighting policies of the local governments of greater Melbourne are investigated, along with the related Australian Standards associated with lighting. Very few of the local governments in greater Melbourne had an explicit policy addressing light pollution and none of them considered the likelihood of behavioural issues such as rebounds in energy use. The results of this study suggest that policies that reduce light pollution, with controls to avoid behavioural complications such as rebound effects, should reduce costs for local governments and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Keywords: artificial light at night; urban planning; architectural lighting; public lighting; lighting systems; dark skies; lighting design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/19/8543/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/19/8543/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:19:p:8543-:d:1756481

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().