Many LuminaNET members are also involved (in one way or another) with the ongoing work of Lighting Global (and Lighting Africa / Lighting Asia), the IFC-World Bank programs supporting markets for off-grid lighting.  I'm one of the people who helps coordinate the Quality Assurance (QA) aspects of those programs and we just released an important update to the QA framework.  The updates are informed (as always) by a stakeholder process that many of you probably participated in.  Thank you!

The full details are linked here and I've included some highlights here:

1. The Minimum Quality Standards are being strengthened.  This set of quality, durability, truth-in-advertising, and other consumer protection standards is now updated to include new criteria and to strengthen some existing levels.  The most important updates from my perspective are a stricter threshold for lumen maintenance and a ban on Mercury and Cadmium in batteries.
2. We are essentially eliminating the public-facing Recommended Performance Targets.  This is not a decision that was taken lightly and stems from an ongoing issue with misinterpretation of the Targets by numerous market participants.  There are details on this in the memo linked above.
3. There is also an updated format for the Standardized Specifications Sheets that Lighting Global uses to communicate and verify third-party measured product quality and performance.  I think the new SSS look a lot better and represent a step forward for usability.
4. Finally, the Lighting Global website is live.  We soft-launched it a while ago but expect that with this update to the framework a lot of people will see things for the first time.

You might be asking yourself what the difference is between Lighting Global and Lighting Africa, which is the program that spawned our efforts.  Lighting Global is basically a spin-off of the elements from Lighting Africa that apply across countries and regions (like QA).  It allows us to have a single program that supports a range of others with more regional focus.

PS: Linked to the elimination of the Performance Targets, we are starting a new stakeholder process that will inform a performance reporting requirement that will be added soon to the Minimum Quality Standards.  The stakeholder process is going to be launched in November, so stay tuned...