By Andrew Starke
Cascade Green, one of the first Australian Government Greenhouse Friendly beers to be accredited as 100 percent carbon offset, has released a solar-powered pub light.
Made from the recyclable material, raw aluminium and Polyethylene Terephthalate (PETG), the Cascade Green pub light was designed to meet standards outlined in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).
The Fox Hotel in Collingwood has been testing the first pub light for four months, with plans to roll out another five units over the coming months.
Clodagh Harris, manager of The Fox, has welcomed the unique pub light.
“The solar pub light is fantastic as it requires no maintenance. It just switches itself on and off and I don’t have to worry about charging it,” said Harris.
“Knowing that it’s helping to reduce our carbon footprint definitely strikes a chord with the locals. It’s actually quite an honour to be the first pub in Australia to have it on display.”
The light’s designer, Martin Dagge of Active Display Group, worked closely with Cascade and the supplier of the light-emitting diode (LED) and solar panel over the last year to create the pub light.
Dagge believes that in the current economic climate and given the public’s ever growing ‘green’ consciousness, the Cascade Green pub light will play an important role in the way display and retail lighting fixtures are produced.
“The Cascade Green pub light could very well change the way light boxes will be supplied in the future,” Dagge said.
According to Cascade’s marketing manager: premium beer, Ben Summons, the benefits to venues go far beyond just improving energy consumption, with the solar powered light being a more economical option to the current fluorescent fixtures.
“The cost of running the unit will be significantly lower than a traditional fluorescent light unit, which is currently being used in nearly all light boxes across Australia. LED bulbs last up to 10 times as long as compact fluorescents,” he said.
“The LED light has a 50,000 hour life, will run for eight consecutive nights when fully charged and turns on automatically when it becomes dark. The unit doesn’t need to be hard-wired into the venues electrical network which also saves on installation and associated maintenance costs.”