Why We Carry Tala: London's B Corp LED Lighting

Tala is a lighting brand founded in London in 2015 by three Edinburgh University friends — Joshua Ward, Maxwell Wood and William Symington — that designs LED bulbs and fixtures to be kept, not replaced. Certified B Corporation since March 2023 with a B Impact score of 89.7, Tala ships in 100% plastic-free packaging and has funded more than 130,000 trees. At Comosum, we carry Tala's pendants and lamps because the bulb is the design — and every one fits a standard E26 socket.

The Story Behind Tala

Tala started as a bulb, not a brand. In 2015, Joshua Ward, Maxwell Wood and William Symington — friends from Edinburgh University who believed good design was the fastest route to a low-carbon home — launched the Voronoi, a mouth-blown glass bulb wrapped around a spiraling LED filament. The premise was simple and, at the time, unusual: if the bulb is beautiful enough to hang bare, you don't need a shade to hide it, and you don't throw the fixture away when the technology moves on.

From that one object the company built a range: the Sphere and Oval bulb families, porcelain forms named Enno, Noma and Oblo, and fixtures — Knuckle, Poise, Loop, Basalt, Kilter — designed around them. Tala is now headquartered in East London, runs warehouses in London, Amsterdam and Atlanta, and keeps showrooms in London and Dallas. It also supplies LED light sources to other lighting brands under OEM partnerships, which says something about the engineering behind the glass.

Design collaborations followed. New York designer David Weeks created two collections for Tala: Echo, a series of pendants and chandeliers built from intersecting powder-coated steel cylinders around the Sphere IV bulb, and Reflection, a family of table lamps shaped to echo Tala's porcelain bulbs. Dwell, Designboom and ArchDaily have each profiled the brand's approach of putting high design into a low-energy bulb.

How Tala Builds Sustainably

Materials

Every Tala bulb is glass. Complex, mouth-blown shapes like the Voronoi use borosilicate glass; smaller, uniform forms use soda-lime glass. Fixtures are made from aluminum and brass — the Basalt pendant is cast brass or cast stainless steel — chosen for durability and recyclability at end of life, and table and floor lamps such as the Knuckle and Poise pair those metals with oak or walnut. There is no sealed LED array: each fixture takes a standard E26 bulb, so a failed light source means a bulb replacement, not a new lamp. Tala designs for the right to repair, with products meant to be maintained, fixed and disassembled.

Manufacturing and supply chain

Tala designs and engineers in London and produces with external manufacturing partners overseen by an in-house supply-chain team and accredited testing labs; B Lab lists China, the Netherlands, the UK and the US as its operating countries. Where the company has real leverage is logistics and packaging, and it publishes the numbers: all inbound shipments are carbon neutral, air freight fell from 10% of shipments in FY20 to 1.4% in FY21, and 100% of packaging in production is plastic-free — a switch Tala estimates saves roughly 8,000 kilograms of single-use plastic a year. The bulbs themselves are engineered for high color rendering, low flicker and long life; LED lighting uses up to 90% less energy than incandescent and lasts up to ten times longer, by Tala's account.

Certifications and recognition

Tala has been a Certified B Corporation since March 2023, scoring 89.7 on the B Impact Assessment against a pass mark of 80 and a median of 50.9 for ordinary businesses, with 27.9 of those points in the Environment category. By its own account it was the sixth UK lighting company to certify, and it recertifies in 2026. Reforestation has been part of the model since the beginning — a founding "Ten Trees" pledge of ten trees for every 200 products sold — now delivered through quarterly donations to the Heart of England Forest in the UK, the National Forest Foundation in the US and WeForest, plus a mangrove-restoration project with Eden Reforestation in Madagascar in 2021–2022. Tala puts the running total at more than 130,000 trees funded.

Why Tala Belongs at Comosum

We already carried one British B Corp in lighting: Anglepoise, whose spring-arm lamps we have written about at length. Tala fills the other half of the room. Anglepoise is task light, a lamp you aim. Tala is ambient light: a pendant over the table, a plug-in over the reading chair, a dim-to-warm bulb that takes a kitchen from work surface to dinner party with a twist of the dimmer. If you are deciding between them, our Anglepoise vs. Tala comparison walks through it.

What convinced us is replaceability. Our sustainable lighting buying guide argues that a fixture is only as sustainable as its light source is replaceable, and Tala takes that further than almost anyone: the bulb is standard E26, it is the most visible part of the design, and the company sells it on its own. Add plastic-free packaging, published freight numbers and a B Corp audit, and Tala clears the manufacturing-accountability and end-of-life dimensions of our Sustainability Meter on evidence rather than adjectives. Every Tala fixture we sell carries a two-year warranty and ships from US stock, and the brand sits alongside the other sustainable furniture brands we have vetted.

Explore Tala at Comosum

Six places to start, all in stock and priced as of September 2026:

• Voronoi III Plug-In Pendant — from $385. The largest mouth-blown Voronoi bulb on a 19-foot fabric cord with an in-line dimmer; plugs into a wall outlet, no electrician needed.
• Oval Dim-to-Warm Pendant Light — from $215. Tala's porcelain Oval bulb on a brass, graphite, oak or walnut fixture, warming in color as it dims.
• Knuckle Table Lamp — from $155. A solid oak, walnut or blackened-oak base sized for a bedside or desk; pick the bulb it comes with, from Voronoi I to the Sphere IV dim-to-warm.
• Poise Adjustable Floor Lamp — from $305. An adjustable reading lamp in graphite or brass with a dimmer, sold bare or paired with the Sphere V dim-to-warm bulb.
• Basalt Single Pendant — from $325. A hexagonal pendant cast in brass or stainless steel; also available as triple and nine-bulb clusters.
• Echo Chandelier — $1,300. David Weeks's white powder-coated steel cylinders around Sphere IV dim-to-warm bulbs — the statement piece of the David Weeks for Tala collection.

Browse the full Tala collection at Comosum →, or see how it sits within our wider lighting collection.

Frequently Asked Questions About Tala

Where is Tala lighting made?
Tala is designed and engineered in London, where the company was founded in 2015 and is still headquartered. Manufacturing is carried out with external partners overseen by Tala's in-house supply-chain team and accredited testing labs; B Lab lists China, the Netherlands, the UK and the US as its operating countries. US orders from Comosum ship from US stock.

Is Tala a B Corp?
Yes. Tala has been a Certified B Corporation since March 2023 with a B Impact score of 89.7 — above the 80-point certification threshold and well above the 50.9 median for ordinary businesses. Environment accounts for 27.9 of those points. Our B Corp explainer covers what the assessment measures.

What materials does Tala use?
All Tala bulbs are glass — borosilicate for mouth-blown shapes such as the Voronoi, soda-lime for smaller uniform forms — and fixtures are made from aluminum, brass and hardwoods like oak and walnut. Packaging is 100% plastic-free.

Can I replace the bulb in a Tala fixture?
Yes. Every Tala fixture we carry uses a standard E26 socket, and Tala sells its bulbs separately, so a burned-out bulb is replaced rather than the whole lamp. Many fixtures ship with the bulb they were designed around; some, like the Knuckle Table Lamp, let you choose the bulb or buy the base bare.

What is Tala's Dim-to-Warm technology?
Dim-to-Warm bulbs shift color temperature as they dim — from a brighter, cooler white around 2800K down to a candle-like 2000K at the lowest setting — the way an incandescent filament behaves, but with LED efficiency. They work with standard dimmer switches.