Why Glasgow named a lighting remanufacturer its Most Outstanding Business in 2025

It can be easy to take lighting for granted; it works until it doesn't. And when it doesn't, the conversation rarely lasts long — the default response is to rip out what you have and replace it with new. This is costly, wasteful, and usually unnecessary.

There is a better approach, and it starts with a question most of us already know how to ask in other contexts: do you actually need new? Making things last is a Scottish tradition, and it turns out there is real money in applying that instinct to a building's lighting estate.

That question sits at the heart of EGG Lighting's operations, and it's a large part of why the remanufacturer celebrated last year's Glasgow Business Awards with two wins: Most Outstanding Business, sponsored by Vita Group and the Net Zero Achievement award sponsored by Glasgow City Council.

Founded in 2013 and now a team of around 30, EGG Lighting works mainly with Scottish public sector bodies, housing associations and commercial clients - organisations whose lighting estates often run into the thousands of fittings. Entities where the gap between "replace it all" and "audit it properly" tends to be measured in six figures. The company operates to BS 8887-221:2024, the standard that formally recognises remanufacture as an end-of-life pathway, distinct from repair or recycling.

"The awards are affirming, but what matters more is seeing clients adopt the model permanently," says Brian O'Reilly, EGG Lighting's founder. "That's when you know the culture is changing."

While the company believes in the many benefits of circular decision making, outcomes are firmly rooted in business success. The Scottish Prison Service has had more than 10,000 fittings remanufactured across its estate, saving over £1 million a year in energy and replacement costs. A major energy provider in Aberdeen cut lighting energy use by 44% and saved £207,423 after remanufacturing 2,116 fittings - evidence, EGG argues, that the choice between "new and efficient" or "old and wasteful" is usually a false one.

Brian's advice for other Glasgow businesses thinking about their own sustainability story is characteristically unglamorous: get an independent audit before you assume anything needs replacing. "The biggest savings we find are rarely about new technology," he says. "They're usually about a client discovering, after an honest look at the numbers, that most of what they'd assumed had reached the end of its life actually hadn't."

The sooner you question what you have, the more informed a decision you can make when you must act. EGG Lighting believes last year's double win was recognition of exactly that work - helping Scottish organisations ask the right question and make a better decision because of it.

For businesses ready to put their own work to the test, applications for The Glasgow Business Awards 2026 close on 10 July.