deLIGHTed Talks Asia @ GILE 2026

Good Light Wake-Up Call Series Report 04

Jan Denneman: A Wake-Up Call — From Illumination to Human Outcomes

If Professor Robert Lucas reminded us that healthy lighting must relearn how to measure how light tells the body time, and if Dr. Marijke Gordijn reminded us that good light means delivering the right light at the right time for the human body, then Jan Denneman‘s keynote brought these scientific and everyday insights to the lighting industry’s most fundamental question:

What is the lighting industry’s next transformation?

At deLIGHTed Talks Asia @ GILE 2026, Good Light Group Chairman Jan Denneman delivered a keynote titled: A Wake-Up Call: From Illumination to Human Outcomes

This was not simply another presentation about the trend of healthy lighting. It was, in many ways, an open letter to the entire lighting industry.

Jan’s message was unmistakable.

The lighting industry has been remarkably successful. We have dramatically improved energy efficiency. We have completed the transition to LED. We have connected lighting to intelligent systems.

But now comes the next question: Do we still share a common purpose?

As technologies multiply, applications expand, and narratives become more diverse, the industry itself risks becoming increasingly fragmented.

That is precisely why lighting must once again answer its most fundamental question: Who is light ultimately for?

1. The Lighting Industry Has Been Successful—But Success Calls for New Questions

Jan did not dismiss the achievements of the lighting industry over the past three decades. On the contrary, he began by recognizing just how successful the industry has been.

From the drive for energy efficiency in the mid-1990s, to the LED transformation around 2005, and then to smart and connected lighting after 2015, the lighting industry has undergone one remarkable transformation after another.

We made lighting more energy-efficient. We made light sources more effective. We gave luminaires unprecedented design freedom. We made lighting controls more intelligent. And we integrated lighting into building systems, the Internet of Things, sensors, smart cities, and data platforms.

It is an extraordinary chapter in the history of our industry.

But Jan reminded us that, by 2026, the challenges facing lighting are no longer defined by a single technological breakthrough.

Artificial intelligence.
The Internet of Things.
Energy.
Light pollution.
Sensors.
Control systems.
Data.
Smart buildings.
Smart cities.
The circular economy.
Human health.

All of these are reshaping the industry simultaneously—making lighting more capable than ever before, but also increasingly fragmented.

We have more technologies. More applications. More narratives. More products. More marketing messages.

But the real question is: More products, more lighting, more competition—does that necessarily mean more value?

This was one of the pivotal moments in Jan’s keynote.

Because when an industry reaches maturity, it can no longer ask only, “What else can we build?”

It must also ask, “Why are we building it?”

The lighting industry does not lack technology. It does not lack products. It does not lack innovation—or new buzzwords.

What it truly needs to rediscover is a shared sense of purpose.

2. The Market Is Growing—But Value Is Not Growing Automatically

In his presentation, Jan introduced what he called a market paradox.

The global lighting market remains enormous and is projected to grow from approximately €70 billion to well over €100 billion.

More buildings. More people. More products. More lighting.

Yet at the same time, many lighting companies are facing stagnant revenues, shrinking margins, intense price competition, and increasing product commoditization.

This is a reality the lighting industry knows all too well.

The market appears larger. But doing business is not necessarily becoming easier.

There are more products. But meaningful differentiation is becoming harder to achieve.

Technology continues to advance. Yet the value of lighting is not always recognized by building owners, designers, or the people who ultimately occupy these spaces.

This led Jan to ask a pivotal question: More value?

Where does that value actually come from?

If the lighting industry continues to compete primarily on products, price, efficacy, and technical specifications, then even a growing market could lead to increasingly intense competition and ever-thinner margins.

That is why the industry must discover its next value proposition.

It cannot simply be about greater energy efficiency. It cannot simply be about smarter systems. It cannot simply be about increased connectivity. Nor can it be about more aesthetically pleasing luminaires alone.

Instead, it must return to the people lighting is meant to serve.

Sleep.
Health.
Well-being.
Performance.
Mood.
Quality of life.
People in the building.

As Jan put it: “The future of lighting is health and wellbeing for the people in buildings.”

The next chapter of lighting is not defined by the technology we install, but by the human outcomes we enable.

3. From an Outdoor Species to an Indoor Generation

One of the most powerful images in Jan’s keynote carried a simple but profound message: From Outdoor Species to Indoor Generation

Human beings evolved alongside natural daylight, the rhythm of day and night, and life outdoors.

We were active under the sun. We slowed down at dusk. We rested in darkness. For thousands of years, our biological rhythms were synchronized with the natural cycle of light and darkness.

Modern life, however, has transformed us into an indoor generation.

We work indoors. We study indoors. We rest indoors. We socialize and entertain ourselves indoors. We receive healthcare indoors. We grow old indoors. Even our evenings have been extended by electric lighting and digital screens.

This is more than a change in lifestyle. It represents a fundamental shift in the light environments we experience every day.

We are still a diurnal species. Yet the spaces in which we live increasingly bear little resemblance to the natural patterns of daylight and darkness that shaped human biology. Our days are too dim. Our nights are too bright.

Jan captured this imbalance with a simple statement that appeared in his presentation: “Too little by day. Too much by evening and night.”

It is one of the defining public health challenges of modern lighting. Not because lighting technology has failed to advance. But because lighting has too often overlooked the body’s internal timing system.

We have mastered the ability to illuminate spaces whenever we choose. What we have not yet mastered is providing the right light at the right time for the people living within those spaces.

4. Healthy Lighting Is Not a New Marketing Narrative—It Is a New Human Value Proposition

Jan’s keynote introduced what he described as a new opportunity for lighting.

But this opportunity is not a new product. It is not another luminaire category. It is not simply adding the word “healthy” to a product brochure. Nor is it just another lighting mode on a control interface.

The opportunity is this: Light can better support human sleep, well-being, performance, and health.

These four words may seem simple, but together they represent a profound shift in how the value of lighting is defined.

Traditionally, lighting has been evaluated by asking questions such as:

Can people see clearly?
Is the space adequately illuminated?
Is it safe?
Is it energy efficient?

In the future, lighting must also answer a new set of questions:

Does this light environment support healthy sleep?
Does it contribute to emotional and psychological well-being?
Does it enhance learning, productivity, and human performance?
Does it improve the health and well-being of the people who occupy the building?

Yet Jan also made an equally important point.

This Wake-Up Call is not an invitation for the industry to rush into making health claims.

Quite the opposite. It is a call for the lighting industry to approach healthy lighting with greater scientific rigor and professional responsibility.

Healthy lighting is not a slogan. It is not a marketing claim. It is not an emotional story.

Healthy lighting must be built on science, thoughtful design, measurable data, verification, and real-world building performance.

It is not simply a new language for promoting lighting products. It should become a new language of responsibility for the lighting industry.

5. From €3 to €300: Reframing Lighting Around Human Value

One of the most thought-provoking slides in Jan’s presentation was titled: From €3 to €300

Using a simple yet powerful illustration, it challenged the way we think about value in buildings.

Energy and utility costs may represent €3.
The building itself may represent €30.
But the people inside the building may represent €300.

The point is not the precise accounting figures. Rather, it is a reminder to building owners, the construction industry, and the lighting profession that the greatest value within a building is often neither its energy consumption nor its equipment—it is the people.

Their health.
Their performance.
Their ability to concentrate.
Their sleep.
Their emotional well-being.
Their retention.
Their productivity.
Their quality of life.

If lighting defines itself only as part of a building’s energy costs, it will remain trapped in the €3 conversation.

If it sees itself merely as another building system, it may advance to the €30 conversation.

But if lighting can demonstrably support human health, well-being, and performance, it has the opportunity to become part of the €300 conversation.

This is exactly what Jan meant by the shift from €3 to €300.

It is a shift away from an energy-cost mindset and toward a human-value mindset.

This distinction is fundamental to the future of the lighting industry.

Because the true value of healthy lighting is not measured solely by how much electricity it saves. Its greatest value lies in how effectively it helps buildings serve the people who inhabit them.

6. From Lighting Products to Lighting Systems That Support Healthier People

In his Wake-Up Call, Jan outlined three major transformations that have defined the evolution of the lighting industry:

We improved efficiency.

We transformed the light source.

We connected lighting to intelligent systems.

Then he posed the next challenge: “Now it is time for the next transformation.”

According to Jan, that transformation consists of three fundamental shifts:

A shift from €3 to €300. A shift from focusing on energy costs to recognizing the value of people.
A shift from lighting products to lighting systems for healthier people. A shift from selling individual luminaires to creating integrated lighting systems that actively support human health and well-being.
A shift from illumination to human outcomes. A shift from measuring success by how well we light a space to evaluating how lighting improves the lives of the people within it.

These three shifts form the central message of Jan’s keynote.

They also capture the broader vision of deLIGHTed Talks Asia @ GILE 2026.

First, the value of lighting should no longer be confined to energy savings or building equipment costs.
Second, healthy lighting is not a standalone product—it is a system that integrates science, design, technology, controls, and verification to support people throughout the day.
Third, the ultimate purpose of lighting is not simply to illuminate spaces, but to enable people to live, work, learn, heal, and thrive within them.

In many ways, these ideas also summarize the overarching theme of the Good Light Wake-Up Call series:

From luminous efficacy to human experience.
From products to systems.
From claims to evidence.
From lighting engineering to healthy buildings.
From illuminating spaces to supporting human life.

7. The Future of Lighting Is the Health and Well-Being of the People in Buildings

Jan concluded his presentation with a clear and compelling statement: “The future of lighting is health and wellbeing for the people in buildings.”

At first glance, it may sound like a bold vision. In reality, it is a remarkably practical one.

After all, modern life is lived predominantly indoors.

At home.
In offices.
In schools.
In hospitals.
In hotels.
In shopping centers.
In transportation hubs.
In senior living facilities.
In public buildings.

If light influences our circadian rhythms, sleep, mood, alertness, performance, and overall health, then the light within these buildings should no longer be regarded as merely part of the infrastructure. It should be recognized as an essential component of healthy buildings.

This does not mean that lighting can replace medicine. Nor does it mean that every lighting product should make health claims.

Rather, it means that lighting should be designed, implemented, and evaluated more responsibly—as one of the environmental conditions that can support health, well-being, and quality of life.

To achieve this, lighting must become more closely connected with healthy building frameworks, public health, architectural design, intelligent controls, building operations, owner value, and occupant experience.

This is the true meaning of the shift from illumination to human outcomes.

Illumination asks whether a space is sufficiently lit.
Human outcomes ask whether the people within that space are healthier, feel better, perform better, and ultimately live better because of the light around them.

8. A Message for China’s and Asia’s Lighting Industry: The Next Competitive Advantage Is Not More Luminaires—It’s a Better Understanding of People

Jan’s keynote carries an especially important message for the lighting industry in China and across Asia.

Asia—and China in particular—has built the world’s most comprehensive lighting supply chain. From LED packaging and drivers to optics, luminaires, lighting controls, sensors, engineering applications, and smart buildings, China has developed extraordinary industrial capabilities.

But the next stage of growth will not be achieved simply by manufacturing more products.

If everyone is producing similar luminaires, similar efficacy, similar dimming capabilities, and similar smart lighting scenarios, competition inevitably returns to price.

The next competitive advantage is likely to come from a different place.

Who better understands people.
Who better understands biological time.
Who better understands healthy buildings.
Who can provide HCL-ready data.
Who can support healthy lighting metrics such as m-EDI and DER.
Who can perform lighting verification at eye level.
Who can integrate daylight, electric lighting, controls, and building operations into a coherent system.
Who can help building owners understand the long-term value of healthy lighting.

This is not about abandoning Asia’s manufacturing strengths. It is about elevating those strengths to the next stage of industry development.

From product manufacturing to system leadership.
From competing on cost to competing on human value.
From supplying lighting equipment to enabling healthy building infrastructure.
From Made in China to a broader movement for Healthy Lighting in Asia.

That, ultimately, is the direction that deLIGHTed Talks Asia seeks to advance.

9. Good Light Wake-Up Call: Not a New Slogan, but a Realignment of the Industry’s Purpose

Jan’s keynote is significant because it never became a discussion about a single technology.

It was not simply about LEDs. It was not simply about smart lighting. It was not simply about energy efficiency. It was not simply about healthy lighting products. Nor was it focused on any one standard or certification.

Instead, it addressed something far more fundamental: The lighting industry needs to realign around a shared purpose.

For decades, that shared purpose was clear.

Greater energy efficiency.
Higher efficacy.
Longer product lifetimes.
Better control.
Smarter lighting systems.

These goals transformed the industry and delivered extraordinary progress. But today, the landscape has changed. Technologies have multiplied. Markets have become more fragmented. Narratives have become increasingly diverse. The industry now needs a new common direction.

Jan’s answer is both simple and profound: Health and wellbeing for the people in buildings.

This is not a rejection of the industry’s past achievements. It is the logical next step built upon them.

Without energy efficiency, healthy lighting could never be deployed at scale.

Without the LED transformation, we would not have the spectral tunability or controllability required to support human-centric applications.

Without smart, connected lighting, it would be difficult to deliver lighting that adapts over time, responds to different activities, and integrates into modern building operations.

These innovations remain essential. But they are the foundation—not the destination.

The next transformation is to apply all of these capabilities in service of people.

That is the true meaning of the Wake-Up Call.

10. Epilogue: Why Jan Denneman’s Wake-Up Call Deserves to Be Heard

Jan Denneman’s keynote matters not simply because it presents a compelling idea—From Illumination to Human Outcomes.

It matters because those words come from someone who has personally witnessed, participated in, and helped shape several of the lighting industry’s most significant transformations.

With a background in physics, Jan has spent decades at the forefront of the global lighting industry. During his career with Philips Lighting and later Signify, he held senior leadership roles spanning innovation, research and development, marketing, and industry development. Beyond his corporate career, he has been an influential leader within international lighting organizations, serving as President of the Global Lighting Association (GLA) and President of LightingEurope, while helping build international collaboration and industry consensus across the lighting sector.

This background is important.

Jan’s Wake-Up Call is not an observation from outside the industry. It comes from within. It comes from someone who has played an active role in the LED transformation, global industry collaboration, European lighting strategy, and the advancement of Human Centric Lighting as a shared direction for the industry.

During his leadership of international lighting organizations, Jan consistently advocated for expanding the industry’s focus beyond energy efficiency and light source replacement toward higher-quality light, intelligent lighting systems, and Human Centric Lighting.

In particular, during his tenure as President of the Global Lighting Association, he helped foster one of the industry’s earliest international consensuses around Human Centric Lighting, contributing to strategic discussions and roadmaps that gradually transformed HCL from a collection of isolated scientific findings and marketing narratives into a topic that the global lighting community could discuss through a common framework.

That is why, when Jan now says: “A shift from lighting products to lighting systems for healthier people.”

it is not merely another slogan. It is the continuation of a vision he has been advancing for many years.

Perhaps even more inspiring is what Jan chose to do after stepping away from executive corporate and industry leadership roles.

He did not stop championing this cause. Instead, he founded and continues to lead the Good Light Group, working to move good light beyond an industry concept and into a broader public movement—one that reconnects light with sleep, circadian rhythms, mood, health, well-being, and quality of life.

The philosophy behind the Good Light Group is both simple and powerful:

Good light is not a luxury.

Good light is not an optional feature reserved for premium projects.

Good light should be part of a healthier and better life for everyone.

Jan’s continued dedication to this mission after retirement is, in itself, a powerful example for the industry.

He has never treated healthy lighting as another commercial label. Instead, he has approached it as a long-term mission requiring scientific translation, professional education, cross-industry collaboration, and public advocacy.

It is within this spirit that the Good Light Group Asia (GLGA) was established.

The creation of GLGA is more than the launch of a regional organization. It represents an important step in bringing the Good Light Wake-Up Call into Asia, into China’s lighting industry, and into the world’s largest lighting manufacturing base and application market.

Asia should not be known only as the place where healthy lighting products are manufactured. It should also become a global leader in translating healthy lighting science into practice—through integrated systems, field verification, demonstration projects, public buildings, and international collaboration.

In this sense, the Wake-Up Call Jan delivered at GILE 2026 is both a reminder to the global lighting industry and an invitation to Asia.

We have completed the revolution in energy efficiency.
We have completed the transition to LED.
We have completed the era of connected lighting.

The next question is whether we can complete the industry’s next transformation together.

From lighting products to lighting systems that support healthier people.
From illuminating spaces to delivering human outcomes.
From competing over products to collectively defining the future of good light.

That is the message that makes Jan Denneman’s keynote worth remembering.

And it is the reason the Good Light Group and Good Light Group Asia continue moving this mission forward across Asia.

Conclusion: The Next Revolution in Lighting Is Not About Brighter Lamps—It’s About Better Lives

Jan Denneman’s keynote established a defining theme for deLIGHTed Talks Asia @ GILE 2026.

The lighting industry has achieved remarkable success. Precisely because of that success, it is time to ask the next question.

We have improved energy efficiency. We have transformed the light source. We have connected lighting to intelligent systems. We have integrated lighting into smart buildings.

Now, can we take the next step?

Can lighting truly serve human health and well-being?
Can healthy lighting move from concept to measurable data?
From products to integrated systems?
From lighting scenes to real-world verification?
From cost reduction to long-term owner value?
From illumination to human outcomes?

This is not an easy transformation. But it may be the most meaningful transformation the lighting industry has ever undertaken.

Because the future of lighting is not simply about higher efficacy. It is not simply about smarter controls. It is not simply about more products.

The future of lighting is about the people inside buildings.

Helping them sleep better.
Helping them feel better.
Helping them work and learn more effectively.
Helping them enjoy a better quality of life.
Helping them age with greater health and dignity.
Helping them thrive in the spaces where they spend most of their lives.

That is the true direction of Good Light.

Good Light is not only about lighting spaces. Good Light is about improving life in buildings.

Good light is not simply about illuminating spaces. It is about helping the people within those spaces live healthier, happier, and more fulfilling lives.

That is the essence of Jan Denneman’s Wake-Up Call.

And perhaps more importantly, it marks the beginning of the Good Light Wake-Up Call—a shared journey toward redefining the purpose of lighting, not by what it illuminates, but by the lives it improves.