GE Lighting Names Limited Brands 2009 Retail Partner of the Year

February 08, 2010

For its excellence in innovation in energy-efficient lighting solutions, GE Lighting recently named Limited Brands as its 2009 Retail Partner of the Year. Limited Brands, parent company of Victoria's Secret, Pink, Bath & Body Works, C.O. Bigelow, La Senza, White Barn Candle Co., and Henri Bendel brands, is hailed as a retail industry leader for adapting new lighting technologies to enhance the look of its stores. The company has been actively pursuing energy savings with lighting projects for more than two decades.

In support of its energy-savings philosophy, Limited Brands was the first to launch several groundbreaking technologies in its stores that are now being used by other retailers worldwide today, among them:

• Halogen Infra-red (HIR) technology, launched in 1994 by using 60- and 80-watt IR lamps in place of 90- and 120-watt standard halogen lamps;
• 35-watt ConstantColor MR16s in 1996 as opposed to 75- and 50-watt MR16s; and
• in 2003, Limited Brands upgraded its stores from 60-watt IR lamps to 55-watt HIR Silv-IR lamps.

Limited Brands has also been instrumental in helping GE Lighting design new products to meet the high lighting standards it upholds for each of its stores, such as:

• GE's 23-watt Genura CFL, the longest life CFL on the market today, and
• GE's HIR+ halogen lamps, the most efficient halogen lamps offered in the industry.

In 2009, Limited Brands implemented two energy-saving projects that will yield more than $3 million in energy savings overall for its brands. The first project included converting Limited Brands' 48-watt HIR+ halogen down-lights to the GE 23-watt PAR38 CFL. The lamp change enabled a 50 percent reduction in energy and cut lamp replacements by 50 percent.

The second Limited Brands project focused on retrofitting its HID and 8-foot linear fluorescent systems in five distribution centers to energy-efficient GE T5 and T8 lamps with UltraMax energy-saving ballasts. The project produced both energy and maintenance savings of more than $700,000.

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