Acuity Brands 2020 Annual Report

INNOVATION

“Our passion for innovation comes from putting the customer at the center of everything we do.”

Vijay Raghavendra, Chief Technology Officer

ABOUT VIJAY

With his extensive experience delivering platforms and applications that are fueled by data and data science, Vijay has a track record of building teams with a strong customer focus, a culture of innovation, and excellence in technology delivery.

We are driving innovation to support customer needs. To accomplish this, we have made investments to gather insights to transform the way we support our customers. By fostering a culture that focuses on the people who specify, purchase, and use our products, we will be able to respond more quickly to the needs of the market and develop solutions that set Acuity Brands apart.

We are continuing to invest in technology to provide new and innovative lighting solutions for our customers. We recognized the trend for luminaires that are smaller and less obtrusive, as well those that can be installed with less complexity. As such we developed the Modulus™ low-voltage distribution and digital lighting control system in response to this need. We are also expanding our lighting portfolio with advanced UV light disinfection products to reduce the pathogenic bioburden in buildings.

We are expanding our technology to provide integrated solutions that will help buildings become more intelligent. Our customers have realized that for them to operate sets of buildings efficiently, they need centralized cloud-based management that connects all sensors, systems, and data streams. With the Company’s integrated platform of lighting, lighting controls, and intelligent building solutions, we are helping our customers go from a fragmented ecosystem to a seamless one that leverages the power of IP-connectivity and the cloud to create spaces that are more energy-efficient, comfortable, and productive.

Expanding our offering of leading architectural lighting solutions.

Architects, contractors, and building owners want luminaires that are sleeker, more sophisticated, and easier to install. To meet their needs, our comprehensive, forward-looking lighting design portfolio provides a range of innovative solutions to meet today's lighting challenges and push the boundaries of creativity.

To take advantage of the demand for smaller, unobtrusive luminaires, we introduced the Modulus low-voltage distribution and digital lighting control system. Modulus leverages our expertise in developing drivers, sensors, and lighting controls, and is unique in that it provides low voltage distributed power and lighting control for luminaires as small as one inch in depth. We also launched Renna™ luminaires from Peerless®, leveraging the Modulus low-voltage distribution platform. Renna earned top recognition from the LightFair Innovation Awards®, one of the lighting industry's most prestigious award programs, for overall Design Excellence and Best of Category for Commercial Indoor.

In 2020, we acquired The Luminaires Group (TLG), a leading provider of specification-grade luminaires for commercial, institutional, hospitality, and municipal markets. TLG's indoor and outdoor lighting products are marketed to architects, landscape architects, interior designers, and engineers through five niche lighting brands: a-light™, Cyclone™, Eureka©, Luminaire LED™, and Luminis©. The addition of these strong brands to our lighting portfolio reinforces our commitment to offering our customers inspired architectural solutions.

“This year, we accelerated our research efforts to solve one of the biggest challenges our customers suddenly found themselves facing.”

GARY TROTT
Vice President of Technology Commercialization

We’re using the power of UV light disinfection technology to reduce the pathogenic bioburden in indoor spaces.

For over 25 years, Gary has worked to develop breakthrough intelligent lighting and IoT-enabled products that change the way we interact with spaces while driving significant value beyond illumination.

Innovation isn’t easy. It requires people to change what they are used to doing, and the process can be disruptive and uncomfortable. The key is to rally a cross-disciplinary team around an exciting new idea, and once people break out of their paradigms, the spark of innovation can come from anyone. This year, we accelerated our research efforts to solve one of the biggest challenges our customers suddenly found themselves facing: how to get back to business and reduce the pathogenic bioburden in their spaces.

We quickly ramped up a team to commercialize new UV light disinfection technologies that balance both efficacy and end-user safety in a way that would be easy for our customers to adopt.

We entered into an exclusive business relationship with Ushio America to add their powerful Care222® UV disinfection technology to our portfolio. Care222 uses filtered excimer lamps to generate 222nm far-UVC light capable of inactivating viruses and bacteria on indoor surfaces and is the first UV light disinfection technology that can be used with people present.

We have also entered into strategic agreements with Violet Defense, an innovator of patented germicidal UV light disinfection technology that uses a pulsed xenon light source to kill bacteria and inactivate viruses, and Puro Lighting, a lighting and technology company that uses Violet Defense® technology to create UV light disinfection solutions for many different industries and categories.

The compact size of these products that utilize the pulsed xenon light source makes them unobtrusive when installed in a ceiling and easier to implement than many traditional UV light solutions.

Our customers are highly motivated to find UV light disinfection products for a wide variety of requirements and budgets. We believe that our alliances providing access to advanced UV light disinfection technology coupled with our product portfolio of lighting, lighting controls and intelligent building solutions along with our sales distribution channels uniquely positions us to take advantage of this market opportunity.

Generating new intelligent building opportunities with an expanded portfolio for commercial, hospitality, healthcare and educational spaces.

According to a recent IDC Connected Buildings – Growing Adoption and Business Value Survey (sponsored by Acuity Brands), over the last two years, there has been a 38% increase in the number of fully operational connected building solutions deployments. Further, the IDC survey found solutions that put occupant experience as the most important feature are deemed as an essential investment in 2020. With this customer need in mind, one of the most sought-after features for this year is the ability to control comfort settings from personal mobile devices, instead of accessing public use devices, which are often touched by multiple end-users. This is where Distech Controls® solutions are focused on helping businesses and building owners who are looking to solve their challenges and deploy the right connected building solutions for their spaces.

The ECLYPSE™ Connected Thermostat is one of Distech Controls’ most recent innovations designed to help bridge an identified technology gap in light-commercial, hospitality, hospital and educational spaces. The ECLYPSE Connected Thermostat will help building owners elevate the value of their portfolio with technology that further reduces energy consumption, provides access to comfort setting management, and can connect with the free my PERSONIFY app. The app gives occupants, facility managers and other key stakeholders access to the building in ways never accomplished before with a standard building thermostat. Furthermore, the ECLYPSE Connected Thermostat features an open system, with an integrated webserver to provide secure compatibility with other building systems. The ECLYPSE Connected Thermostat does not require access to the building’s IT network systems, nor does it require tricky proprietary gateways for seamless integration.

While the demand for intelligent buildings continues to grow, the objectives of these spaces are forever evolving. Distech Controls will continue to expand its innovative products and solutions beyond the more traditional energy efficiency considerations of years past to occupant comfort and wellbeing as a prominent focus. Distech Controls’ future-ready products and solutions are poised to take on these new challenges to offer truly intelligent buildings around the world.