Indicators on Light Pollution for Policy Making

Lucas Porsch, Fellow at Ecologic Institute, was asked to comment on presentations regarding the economic costs of light pollution held during the conference "The bright side of the night." In his comments, Lucas Porsch set out the criteria for light pollution indicators to be usable in practical policy making. He explained the type of valuations of environmental damages used in the assessment tool developed for the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). He also summarized the potential inclusion of light pollution indicators into the work on the Environmental Pressure Index.

Artificial lighting has multiple cultural and social functions and is generally seen as a sign of security and social night life, but more recently the use of artificial light in public spaces is discussed more controversially. The negative impacts on humans and animals and landscapes as well as the ecological aftermath of energy consumption have been discussed in more detail recently and "light pollution" was widely criticized. There are only few general standards or regulations regarding the quantity and quality of outdoor lighting, as artificial lighting is a highly complex field that involves multiple interests and actors. Empirical research on the topic has only begun in recent years. The conference "The bright side of the night" organized by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funded project "Loss of the Night" focused on the humanities and the social sciences and discussed various research approaches concerning lighting and light pollution.

In brief, the projects Methodological Development of the EU Composite Index on Environmental Pressures and assessment tool show that indicator development for light pollution is still in early stages and researchers working in the field have to focus on the most politically relevant impacts and also pragmatically on the impacts where data quality and methodology development is sufficient. There is a lot to learn from valuation and indicator development work in other related fields (eg. Noise pollution) where work is already more advanced.