Despite the best intentions of a variety of stakeholders- . from the lighting designer to the luminaire manufacturer to the facility manager energy efficiency is too quickly abandoned in many commercial retrofit lighting projects, even before the luminaires are installed, as short-term economic interests trump sound energy decisions for numerous owners.

As part of its research for an upcoming report on the obstacles to speedier implementation of energy-efficient buildings, the Eneref Institute, a research center that studies and reports on successful green building projects, examined one slice of the commercial lighting retrofit process: the use and potential effectiveness of specular aluminum luminaire reflectors in retrofit projects.