The 7 Lighting Certifications You Need to Know

Become an informed consumer so you can shop confidently for certified lighting products. Knowing the types of light certifications you will run across when purchasing light bulbs or lighting fixtures will help you have confidence in your purchases. Many certifications have to do with safety, but others indicate energy efficiency or compliance with government regulations, like the FCC.

This blog reviews who is involved in certifications, what they certify, which ones are common in our industry, and where to review the certifications on each Sunco product.

Most Sunco products are proudly backed by several of these industry standard certifications:

• CE Marketing
• DLC Approved
• EnergyStar®
• ETL Certification
• FCC Certification
• RoHS Certification
• UL Listed

Who Performs Product Certifications?

Sunco products are independently tested and approved by various certification organizations. This means you can trust our certified lighting products will perform within industry standards. Testing is mostly done by the agency that provides certification or at approved independent testing facilities.

Some certifications can be performed with our own testing data for estimation purposes. ENERGY STAR® allows LED device manufacturers to perform our own LM-80 testing. This approved method estimates the lifetime hours of qualified SSL luminaries. It shows the relative light output - over time - at various set conditions. In other words, it reflects how quickly the light output of a component level LED will depreciate.

Which Product Certifications Are Obtained By Sunco?

Many products will have multiple certifications applied to them. Here is a list of the type of certifications you might see on Sunco Lighting product packaging and technical specifications:

ENERGY STAR is a United States government backed system for energy efficiency. Like the other certifications reviewed here, they provide simple and unbiased, credible information that businesses and customers can rely on to help make informed purchase decisions.

You will see the ENERGY STAR mark on select Sunco products. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ensures that each product that earns the logo was independently certified to deliver the quality, performance, and savings that consumers have come to expect.

UL stands for Underwriters Laboratories. They are a non-profit organization who refer to themselves as an independent global, safety science company. They test and approve products for consumer safety and standards. Typically, UL certified products include or process electricity. When something is labeled as UL Listed that means the tested product met pertinent requirements under the Underwriters Laboratories’ Standards of Safety.

This organization has been in existence for more than a century and do not have a financial interest in the products they evaluate. That is quite a pedigree.

Underwriters Laboratories provides various marks (like the logo shown here) that manufacturers like Sunco can use to indicate a product is UL Listed.

Electrical Testing Laboratories or ETL was begun by Thomas Edison under the title Lamp Testing Bureau in 1896 to test the safety of light bulbs. ETL now tests against Standards of Safety by using published standards from companies like UL, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), among others.

Intertek ETL provides a certification mark to indicate proof of product compliance in the U.S., Canada, and in other parts of the world with set safety standards.

DesignLight Consortium is a non-profit with a mission to define quality, facilitate thought leadership, and to deliver both tools and resources to the lighting market through open dialogue and collaboration. In addition, utilities nationwide participate in rebate programs regarding DLC standards for select products.

Accredited laboratories perform the testing, according to DLC LED lighting requirements, to comply with performance standards in: distribution, color, and longevity/stress.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates and enforces products that can emit radio frequency energy or other electromagnetic interference that might cause harm to the public or broadcast in radio frequency range, plus other telecommunications requirements. The FCC enforces this per Title 47 of CFR Section 2.907.

Certification for RF devices is the most stringent offered by the FCC due to the potential interference with radio services. Test data provided to the FCC is sourced from testing performed by an FCC recognized and accredited testing laboratory.

Sunco LED bulbs and devices with remote, Bluetooth, or WiFi functionality all include FCC certification, since they are Radio Frequency (RF) devices and fall under FCC rules.

    

CE Marking indicates that the product may be legally placed on the EFTA & European Union (EU) market. This attests that a particular product contains the essential requirements and/or performance levels, and Harmonized Standards to which products must conform in Europe. Harmonized Standards are the technical specifications established by several European standards agencies (CEN, CENELEC, etc.).

The letters “CE” stand for the French phrase “Conformité Européene,” which is translated as European Conformity.

Most Sunco products are RoHS compliant. RoHS stands for Restriction of Hazardous Substances, also known as Directive 2002/95/EC. It originated in the European Union and restricts the use of specific hazardous materials within electrical and electronic products. All applicable products in the EU market after July 1, 2006 must pass RoHS compliance.

The restricted materials below were banned under RoHS include materials. They were commonly found in traditional light bulbs – but are not in Sunco LED bulbs:

• Lead (Pb)
• Mercury (Hg)
• Cadmium (Cd)
• Hexavalent Chromium (CrVI)
• Polybrominated Biphenyls (PBB), Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDE)
• 4 types of Phthalates: DEHP, BBP, BBP, DIBP

These restricted materials are hazardous to the environment, they pollute landfills, and are dangerous in terms of occupational exposure during manufacturing and recycling. This is one of the many reasons to switch from traditional light blubs to LED lighting. Here are a few more reasons to change over to LED lights.

Where Do I Find Product Certifications Listed?

Product certifications like those listed above can be found in a variety of places on our website:

Product Pages – Find certification logos under our bullet point highlights on each product page. Each icon represents the certs that apply to that particular product. You can also find a list of product certifications under the Specs tab. Scroll down to view the certification list or download the spec sheet PDF for reference offline.

Manuals & Documentation Page – Explore the technical specs, installation manuals, and Lighting Facts labels on our Manuals & Documentation Page (Find more on the Lighting Facts labels here). Technical specifications include certification logos for your reference, along with a list of the certifications that apply to that product.

Product Packaging – Sunco also displays certification logos on our product packaging for your reassurance and quick reference.

Sunco LED lighting products are backed by certifications so you can be reassured that our light bulbs and lighting fixtures meet standard requirements. Should you have questions about our products you can explore the newly expanded Product FAQs or reach out to our helpful Customer Service team.

Happy with our products? Let us know how you are using our bulbs and fixtures. Tag us on Social media with #suncolighting.