An intense competition

It is  quite a challenge for European manufacturers to compete with supplier from China, which can produce their products much cheaper because they don’t have to be in compliance with environmental and social standards. Fabio DeSisti, CEO of the Italian manufacturer DeSisti Lighting, speaks in the Green Film Shooting interview about European safety and quality standards.

What is DeSisti’s green policy?
Our commitment started a long time ago. We developed LED lighting by utilizing the identical metal architectural of the tungsten lights that we had been promoting for forty years. Our LED solutions perfectly match the housings of the old tungsten lights.
We offer retrofits that make it possible to upgrade tungsten lights to LED. We also have a policy for new lights in which we buy back the old lights and recycle them. About 98 percent of the old lights get new LED fixtures. We only replace the lamp holder and the reflector in the old lights. We use them as spare parts, so we don’t trash anything. This solution covers many areas that retrofitting alone wouldn’t cover.

What results do you get by upgrading from tungsten to LED?
There is an approximate 80–90 percent reduction in power consumption. There are some secondary effects on ancillary reductions, for example, air conditioning, because with tungsten lights, 90–93 percent of the energy input is transformed in heat; while with LED, just under 70 percent is transformed in heat. So, if you already have LED, which is one-tenth of that of tungsten, and the heat is 70 percent of one-tenth, then you have 0.7 percent of the energy being transformed into heat. In the old days, it was closer to 9.2, 9.3 percent.

Where do you source your raw materials?
We are a true European supplier. Our goal is to have repeatable purchasing options as well as repeatable components. We have some suppliers that come up with custom solutions for us. We also have some new setups. We have a manufacturing facility that actually is taking the very basic raw materials that are only available outside Europe and using them in components.

Will less products be produced in China?
In the old days, Chinese products came to Europe not only as raw material but also as applications. It was an invasion. But lately, the Chinese realize that there are very high transportation costs and many more issues with tariffs. We see an opportunity to develop the applications of some of the components that came from distant suppliers. We are studying this to determine whether we can do it professionally with the right certifications and adherence to safety and quality standards.

How can European manufacturers protect themselves against Chinese competitors?
I’m not certain whether there the European market can be rigidly protected from Chinese competition. It’s a complicated phenomenon. Commercial wars are difficult to undertake.
For instance, a worker’s salary in China represents a tenth of that of a worker in Germany. And this is impossible to fight if you accept that export products are being made by slave labor. If you simply allow a country to practice slavery, and there’s a free market for it’s products, then we have failed. A competitor that doesn’t follow the same rules can offer his product at much cheaper prices if he ignores safety.

How do you act against this?
We have a some intrinsic protection because our customers are more demanding. Standardization of certain products is very important, because we can make spare parts available. Some Chinese companies don’t maintain their products; they just replace it. We want to participate by actively applying the concepts of green best practices, safety, performative, and, efficiency.

Photo: © GFS