Rakumba has designed and manufactured decorative lighting in Australia since 1968. Sustainability is engineered into our products from the first design sketch - not retrofitted, certified into, or marketed onto a finished object; we think actions speak louder than words. This policy sets out the principles that guide our material choices, manufacturing, packaging, and product lifecycle, and the specific practices by which we hold ourselves to those principles.
Our designs are intended to be timeless and non-seasonal, conceived as heirloom objects that are preserved and passed on rather than discarded and replaced. Building an emotional connection to the product is one of the most thoughtful actions our designers take when conceiving new works – a product that is treasured is one that will naturally endure without replacement. Longevity is, in our view, the single most consequential sustainability lever available to a manufacturer of decorative goods.
Rakumba has operated continuously in Australia since 1968. That history confers two responsibilities: we are equipped to repair and maintain products that left our workshop decades ago, and we can offer purchasers today the reasonable assurance that the same support will be available decades from now.Each product that leaves Rakumba is subject to a double independent quality inspection according to formal QC inspection checklists, and undergoes a powered illumination test to minimise the risk of a product being returned or discarded.
The majority of our products are designed from the ground up around fully integrated LED SMD and COB technologies sourced from leading global part suppliers, paired with remote low-voltage drivers. This integrated architecture delivers substantially higher efficiency than the retrofit screw-in LED globes commonly used in decorative fittings, which rely on miniaturised onboard drivers to step down from mains voltage and inevitably compromise both performance and longevity.
Our integrated lightsources achieve L70 lifespans of up to 100,000 hours, compared to approximately 20,000 hours for typical retrofit LED globes - reducing the volume of spent lightsources entering the e-waste stream by a factor of five. The remote driver is more reliable than an integrated one and, critically, is independently replaceable when service is required.
Rakumba is one of very few Australian decorative lighting manufacturers to develop tailored LED lightsources specifically suited to each product line. Operating on LEAN manufacturing principles with deliberately minimised stockholding, we are able to adopt successive LED generations - each more efficient than the last - within months rather than years. Optical and diffuser materials are selected to deliver the highest possible lumens per watt consistent with the cosmetic objective of each fitting.
Our commitment to fully integrated LED technology - which Rakumba championed among Australian decorative lighting manufacturers - has a meaningful downstream impact on power generation demand and, consequently, on emissions associated with the lighting of buildings.
We also maintain a componentry supply chain that extends this benefit beyond our own product range, supporting boutique designer-manufacturers who would otherwise struggle to access direct LED purchasing from major suppliers. Raising the efficiency floor for the wider Australian industry is, in our view, part of our responsibility as an early adopter.
The Rakumba collection is engineered for European CE certification and is submitted for testing against RoHS 2.0 - a rigorous, destructive analysis of restricted substances. This standard is not yet compulsory in Australia or other international markets; we apply it as a matter of policy. Extending this, we have implemented the following policies:
- Lead-free solder is used exclusively across the entire collection.
- Ceramic glazes are specifically developed to avoid lead and other heavy metals.
- Chrome plating is excluded from the standard finish range
- Powder coating is preferenced wherever surface finish requirements allow, to reduce
volatile emissions and offgassing associated with wet paint application.
- Where wet painting is unavoidable, acrylic evaporative paints are utilised rather than 2K systems to eliminate workshop exposure to isocyanate hardeners.
- Photolithographic 3D printing and polyurethane resin casting are excluded on the same principle: to prevent the handling of uncured plastic resins.
- Non-silica sandblasting media is typically used for glass frosting rather than acid etching.
Waste reduction is a core operational priority of our LEAN manufacturing model. Internal components are assessed against a multi-tier quality rating rather than a binary pass/fail, enabling parts that fall short on first inspection to be earmarked for rework and returned to production-worthy stock rather than discarded. Offcuts from metal fabrication and cardboard packaging are recycled in full.
A continual internal project is the reduction of shipping volume. Australia is a large country, Rakumba exports internationally, and decorative lighting is characteristically light but bulky - a combination that wastes shipping space and fuel. We therefore design products from the ground up to be modular or flat-packable wherever possible: Indre, Typography, and Big Glow are examples of large-scale pendants that ship in compact cardboard packaging rather than the oversized timber crates such pieces conventionally require.
Backwards compatibility between component generations is maintained wherever engineering allows, so that updated designs do not render existing stock or installations obsolete.
Packaging is designed and largely produced in-house and tailored to each individual product, eliminating the volumetric waste of shipping small items in oversized boxes. Box patterns are nested efficiently on the cardboard stock to maximise yield, and all offcuts are recycled.
We maintain an ongoing design brief to eliminate plastic, bubble wrap, and foam from our packaging wherever product protection permits, in favour of pure cardboard solutions which are more readily and more cleanly recyclable. Materials that have particularly poor characteristics or contribute to microplastics – such as Styrofoam – are not considered, and where plastics must be used for performance reasons, recycled/recyclable EPE foam and compostable PLA wrap are given priority.
We have not yet identified recycled material sourcing streams that meet the performance and cosmetic requirements of our finished products, and we will not compromise on quality to claim a recycled content figure. Where recycled material does meet our standard -for example, EPE foam used in protective packaging - it is specified as standard.
Beyond recycling, Rakumba has conducted significant R&D to develop a novel and sustainable materiality for our signature collection ‘Big Glow’. Through a patent-pending industry-first technology, we blend traceable locally-grown wool with plant-based bioplastic to form a locally produced and fully compostable material that replaces outdated choices such as fibreglass and ‘cocoon’ in the production of 3-dimensional diffuser forms. We seek to prompt a re-evaluation of these materials throughout the industry.
Rakumba products are designed for disassembly. Adhesives and one-way closures are minimised in favour of re-openable fasteners, allowing individual parts to be accessed for maintenance, repaired or replaced to prolong product life, and ultimately separated by material at end of life.The dominant materials in our palette - glass, brass, and aluminium - are highly recyclable and retain value through the recycling process. Plastics are restricted to applications where technical performance demands them, given their degradation through successive recycling. We do not use fibreglass (excluding PCBs) or thermosetting plastic resins, both of which have poor recyclability.
Sustainability at Rakumba is design-led rather than certification-led, allowing it to be a friction free aspect of the design and manufacturing process. The practices set out in this policy reflect choices made hundreds of times each year by our designers and production staff. They are reviewed annually and revised as new materials, technologies, and evidence become available.
.png)
