On the lighting of Sweden's preschools

This project addresses the problem of insufficient knowledge for decision-making of replacing thousands of luminaires in preschools all across Sweden that may put children’s health at a potential risk. Phasing out T8 fluorescent tubes from Sept 2023 (EU ecodesign, 2019/20) will accelerate LED implementation in EU, including Sweden’s decentralized 290 municipalities with over 7000 preschools.

We highlight a potential risk to procure lighting systems commonly used for offices and environments for adults (4000K ceiling flat panels, spot lights), without a consensus on ambient light distribution for children by professionals. As we are informed, many preschools are planned to be built in coming years. We propose three solutions to the urgent problem:

1. Measure glare & direct light in existing fixed LED lighting systems 2. Optimise LED spatial light distribution inside preschool rooms, monitor eye movements 3. Form a task force to draft a road map for speeding up knowledge transfer