One morning I was walking to work in London when I passed a woman unlocking her shop on Old Bond Street. I noticed that all the lights in the shop were on, yet she clearly hadn’t been inside that day as the shutters were still down.

Realising the lights had probably been on all night, I couldn’t shake a sense of curiosity at why she was wasting electricity.

I began to investigate the subject more and found similar concerns expressed on websites like Green Girls Global. I also began to make late night trips to Old Bond Street on my way home to see how many shop owners had the same attitude as the woman I saw unlocking her shop.

I was horrified to discover that nearly every shop on Old Bond Street left at least some lights on after dark even though they were closed.

One night I had a chat with the security guard who has the unfortunate task of patrolling the street at dark. He told me that my fears were right and that most of the shops left their lights on all night. Some were even timed to come back on as the sun went down.

In looking to understand why shop owners may leave their lights on at night I came across two main responses. The first is that it is for security reasons. This I think is a crazy excuse. Surely it would be better to turn the lights off as any thief breaking into a shop with its lights turned off would need a torch to see where they going. The security guards would find this torch light very easy to spot.

The second and more plausible reason is that the shop lights are left on to attract shoppers. This I find more convincing especially on a road like Old Bond Street with its overt sense of wealth and extravagance. However surely we should be putting the fight against catastrophic climate change above mere window shopping? There are so few people on Old Bond Street at night it doesn’t seem worth the bother of leaving all the lights on. Surely the act of saving energy would be a much more powerful and environmentally positive statement to their customers?

To spread my concerns I created a website called www.bondstreetbaddies.com which has the aim of publicising which shops leave their lights on and which are going green.

Obviously this is a problem that blights many streets and I’d encourage anyone interested in this subject to find ways of drawing attention to it. I’d also encourage people to ask at their favourite shop whether they turn off their lights at night and if not why not?