#1210 2015 · Philips (with Cofely, for Schiphol Group) · Commercial lighting / circular economy
Philips kept owning Schiphol Airport's light fixtures and sold the lux instead
the problem
A lighting maker profits from fixtures wearing out and being replaced, which rewards the opposite of durable design
background
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport wanted to renovate the lighting in its terminal buildings, but a conventional fixture sale creates a mismatch between what the manufacturer profits from and what the customer wants: a lighting company that sells fixtures makes more money the sooner those fixtures fail and get replaced, while the airport wants light that lasts, is easy to maintain, and doesn't fill a landfill with old fittings every renovation cycle.
Schiphol also didn't actually want to own thousands of light fixtures, with all the capital cost, depreciation and eventual disposal that implies — it wanted illuminated terminals, full stop.
what everyone would do
Sell Schiphol energy-efficient LED fixtures at a premium price with a standard warranty and maintenance contract — the conventional way a lighting supplier competes on a large institutional renovation.
what they saw
A lighting maker that owns the fixtures forever profits from them lasting, not failing — reversing a century of incentive to build lights that eventually need replacing.
the move
Philips, working with facilities partner Cofely, agreed to a 'pay-per-lux' arrangement: Philips designed and installed fixtures specifically engineered to be easy to repair, upgrade component-by-component and eventually recycle, kept legal ownership of every fixture, and billed Schiphol only for the light delivered, not for the hardware. Philips and Cofely remained jointly responsible for keeping the lights performing and, at end of life, for reclaiming and recycling the materials.
why it works
Because Philips never transfers ownership, every euro spent on repairs, energy waste or premature failure comes out of Philips's own margin rather than the customer's budget, which makes designing for longevity, repairability and eventual material recovery a direct financial interest rather than a marketing claim. Schiphol, in turn, gets guaranteed illumination without ever having to manage lighting assets, freeing it to focus on running an airport rather than a facilities inventory.
the payoff
Fixtures last 75% longer than conventional ones and cut Schiphol's projected maintenance cost by around 60%.
where it breaks
The model needs the seller to have a credible plan and market for reusing or recycling the reclaimed materials, and it depends on the contract running long enough for the durability investment to pay back — a short-term lease with no path to reuse just shifts capital cost around without changing anyone's incentive to build things that last.
what came after
Schiphol's pay-per-lux deal became the reference case for 'light as a service' and the wider circular-economy 'product as a service' model, cited across sustainability and business literature as proof that keeping ownership can align a manufacturer's incentives with durability instead of against it.
references
- [1]Philips provides Light as a Service to Schiphol AirportSignify (Philips Lighting), 2015signify.com
- [2]Light as a service: green performance economy in Schiphol AirportEuropean Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform, 2018circulareconomy.europa.eu