Efforts to enhance home energy efficiency have spurred a growth in a variety of alternative lighting sources that use less energy than conventional incandescent bulbs. With this improvement comes a greater variety of light quality, although this latter property has become obscured amidst the excitement generated by energy savings. How well do these new, “green” lighting sources actually render color to the human eye? They can illuminate a room at a lower cost, but is it necessary to forfeit the ability to tell whether your clothes match just to save money and energy? Many consumers and inspectors should be aware of a metric designed to quantify this aspect, known as the color rendering index, known as CRI. CRI is a measure of how well light sources render the colors of the things they illuminate, such as skin tones and fabrics…(read full article on InterNACHI)