Survey on People’s Opinions Regarding Façade Lighting and Light Pollution: The Case Study of Greece

Light pollution is part of the contemporary environmental crisis that threatens directly and indirectly humans and biodiversity. This phenomenon has been deteriorating the last years. Scientists have given the last decades prominence to the need for proper urban lighting design, including buildings’ façade lighting, that causes less light pollution and energy consumption. Based on the available literature and research, façade lighting significantly contributes to the increase of the night sky glow near cities. Being part of the general urban lighting, façade lighting has not been studied though sufficiently concerning its impact on light pollution. In addition, the absence of strict restrictions applied on light pollution caused by façade lighting has been observed at global scale. This paper relies on a survey related to different existent façade lighting installations applied on modern buildings in Greece. The objective of this paper is the collection and comparison between gathered qualitative and quantitative data concerning the waste of light caused by façade lighting that is emitted towards unwanted directions such as sky or adjacent building properties. The aim of this research is the assessment of different façade lighting techniques regarding light pollution and energy waste.