DLC LUNA Turtle Lighting

In coastal areas, artificial light at night can confuse sea turtle hatchlings and nesting females by interfering with the natural light cues they use to find the ocean. This disorientation can lead them away from the water and increases their risk of injury or death. The DesignLights Consortium’s LUNA (Light Usage for Night Applications) program qualifies commercial and industrial outdoor lighting products that are intended to reduce light pollution impacts. LUNA was launched in 2021 and qualifies products that meet added light-pollution criteria beyond DLC’s LED performance requirements.

Coastal communities are experiencing more nesting events of endangered and threatened sea turtles and are increasingly relying on ordinances and procurement specifications for LED lighting to protect sea turtle habitats. In LUNA V2.0 Technical Requirements, the DLC has added a dedicated Turtle Lighting specification providing lighting manufacturers a clear product parameters for qualification. LED Lighting products accepted to our qualified product list will emit long-wavelength light, produce zero-uplight, limit high-angle light, and have a cap on light output to avoid overlighting nearby nesting beaches. Using the LUNA Qualified Products List (QPL), purchasers can identify third-party verified Turtle Lighting products that meet these constraints.

LUNA Turtle Lighting Qualified Products

• Help coastal communities select lighting that protects turtles.

• Minimize light spill onto beaches and natural areas that can disorient sea turtles

• Address human safety concerns alongside habitat protection

• Meet turtle lighting procurement and ordinance requirements with a trusted, third party verification tool

Use the LUNA QPL to:

• Obtain detailed performance information for qualified turtle lighting products.

• Find products that are high quality and save more energy than other market choices

• Ensure you will meet turtle lighting ordinance and/or procurement requirements and be eligible for energy efficiency program rebates

• Ecologists and coastal resource managers can use the LUNA QPL to screen and validate Turtle Lighting product performance (sign up for a free MyDLC account to access the QPL for free)

• Municipal staff, and policy makers can use the LUNA QPL to find Turtle Lighting products that comply with sea turtle ordinance/procurement requirements, while preserving rebate eligibility from energy efficiency programs that require DLC qualification.

• Utility staff can use the LUNA QPL to reduce administration burden while verifying that incented products meet sea turtle ordinance/procurement requirements.

How can you benefit from LUNA Turtle Lighting?

• Save time researching lighting and products for turtle habitats.

• Get trusted, third party recommendations that comply with ordinances.

• Save energy with the most energy efficient lighting choices for turtle habitats.

What qualified “LUNA Turtle Lighting” means (in technical terms)

A luminaire qualified as Turtle Lighting on the LUNA Qualified Products List (QPL) is required to meet all applicable DLC LED & LUNA baseline requirements (e.g., quality, reliability, controllability), plus turtle-specific criteria that reduce ecological impact drivers:

• Turtle Lighting products must use direct-emission (de-) Amber LEDs (i.e., narrowband amber) to limit disorientation caused by short- and mid-wavelength light.

• Filtered amber products are explicitly disallowed for qualification under the LUNA Turtle Lighting specification because the filter can be removed in the field, undermining best practice compliance.

• Zero direct uplight to minimize sky glow.

• Turtle Lighting products have an IES U-0 Rating (no directly emitted uplight).

• High-angle light control, to limit horizon and/or line-of-sight brightness.

• Turtle Lighting products must meet a maximum IES G Rating as a mechanism for limiting high-angle emissions. While G Ratings are sometimes used to limit glare perception for humans, the G Rating maximum is not used by DLC as a discomfort-glare metric for humans or turtles.

• Total light output maximums for Turtle Lighting Products to help avoid over-lighting and increase sky glow from reflected light.

• LUNA sets maximum light outputs by product type.

Turtle Lighting product types (i.e., primary use designations (PUDs)) currently recognized in LUNA V2.0

Three product types are eligible to be listed as Turtle Lighting, if they meet the following performance requirements:

Amber LEDs: why nomenclature matters (and DLC defines “amber”)

A recurring implementation problem for decision makers is that “amber” is used inconsistently in product marketing and procurement. To support consistent comparisons, and screen products that comply with turtle lighting ordinances/procurement specifications, the DLC defines three amber categories for its SSL V6.0 / LUNA V2.0 requirements:

Direct-emission (de-) Amber LED: An LED that emits narrowband amber light directly. The DLC requires that qualified de-Amber LED products emit no more than 1% of their spectrum below 560 nm.

Phosphor-converted (pc-) Amber LED: a narrowband blue pump LED with a reddish phosphor that down-converts most of the blue light to longer-wavelength output. The DLC requires that qualified pc-Amber products emit no more than 2% blue light (between 400 – 500 nm).

Filtered Amber LED: a white LED (e.g. 2200–5000 K) with an amber filter or optic. The DLC requires that qualified Filtered-Amber products produce 2% or less blue light emissions between 400 – 500 nm.

The DLC also sets technology-specific minimum efficacy thresholds for amber products to balance ecological performance with energy efficiency goals. These thresholds are as follows:

• de-Amber 30 lm/W
• pc-Amber 70 lm/W
• Filtered Amber 95 lm/W.

Want to see more qualified LUNA Turtle Lighting products?

• Ask lighting manufacturers to qualify their turtle lighting products to LUNA
• Share this page with your lighting representatives and municipalities with coastal communities
• Ask us to speak at your event or meeting about turtle lighting and Amber LEDs
• Share this page on LinkedIn and tag @DesignLights Consortium
• Reach out to us with questions at info@designlights.org.