Crystal light have a slight environmental edge on compact fluorescent bulbs and both trump traditional incandescent bulbs by a wide margin, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory says in a new report.

PNNL, a U.S. Department of Energy lab based in Richland, Wash., compared the environmental footprint of the three bulbs, including mining of raw materials, manufacturing, disposal and electricity use. It's the first public report to examine the impact of LED manufacturing in depth.

This might not make a difference if you plan to put the bulb behind a shade, but if you run a restaurant or hotel you can’t ruin its interior design by having bright yellow bulbs in every socket that is not powered up. This sort of buyer will happily reap the lower total cost of ownership of LED bulbs while paying a sizable premium for Switch’s design.