Globally, even scientists, students and administrative staff are changing their working environment to mitigate the impact of research on the planet.
Even before the pandemic (with its tonnes of masks being thrown away), it is estimated that worldwide researchers are responsible for several million tonnes of plastic waste per year.
Scientists use massive amounts of energy, exacerbate pollution and contribute to climate change. Various estimates indicate that a research lab can consume three times more energy as an office of the same size. Common laboratory equipment such as fume hoods and ultra-low-temperature freezers could use as much as an average household.
My Green Lab
Enter postdoctoral student, Julie Sesen and her non-profit organisation, My Green Lab to assist scientists with improved sustainability in research labs. Sesen, with another postdoctoral student founded BCH Greenlabs, an initiative to support other research groups in reducing their carbon footprint and plastic waste.
The Drive towards Eco-friendlier Research
The massive environmental impact of laboratory research on the environment has led to many other institutions working towards a more eco-friendlier workspace. There are now hundreds of such programmes around the world developed either in-house or in partnership with organisations such as My Green Lab.
Some initiatives, such as the one at BCH, are mainly run by volunteers, mostly students and postdocs, while other institutions have sustainability offices overseen by one or more paid specialists. Taking advantage of the increased uptake of sustainable lab practices, environmental advocates are now using the opportunity to push for larger, systemic change. While the COVID-19 pandemic has hindered some of these efforts, it has also motivated people to do more, according to The Scientist. In a handful of countries, sustainable practices may even soon be tied to grant funding (such as the United Kingdom), making a green approach an integral part of life sciences research.
“The momentum is incredibly good right now. We’re seeing an explosion of green labs,” says My Green Lab’s CEO, James Connelly. “But we do need those systemic levers [for science] to be part of the climate solution and not part of the climate challenge.”
A Wave of Lab Sustainability Programmes
Although most researchers are open to adopting greener laboratory practices, the “scientific industry as a whole has been a bit slow to address climate change,” says Connelly. When My Green Lab first started in 2013, it had partnerships with only 10 schools. Now, it works with more than 1,000 labs in 36 countries, including several biotechnology companies.
The organisation offers a voluntary certification process in which researchers assess a laboratory’s current energy and equipment usage, as well as chemical and waste disposal systems. These assessments are sent to My Green Lab, which makes suggestions for improvement. These are low-cost or zero-cost ideas to improve the sustainability of scientific research that does not undermine or interfere with the research undertaken.
Simple suggestions include actions such as closing the fume hood sash, reducing energy consumption by up to 30% and even setting ultra-low temperature freezers to –70 °C instead of the standard –80 °C, reducing the appliances’ yearly energy consumption by 30%.
Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF)
Another popular certification scheme is the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF), was developed at University College London and now used at several schools in the UK. These schools typically have a centralised office to help implement LEAF, but it is entirely up to individual labs to opt in. Just as many other sustainability initiatives, LEAF mainly focuses on life science laboratories because they have a lot of similar, energy-intensive equipment. Most of the guidance encourages behavioural changes such as remote participation in conferences, re-using solvents and cataloguing chemicals and samples to avoid over-purchasing supplies. Although participation is voluntary, 100% of Bristol in the UK’s 1,000 laboratories have adopted LEAF.
Some institutions have launched their own sustainability programs. The University of Colorado Boulder started its initiative, CU Boulder Green Labs, back in 2009. Program manager, Kathryn Ramirez-Aguilar, says that the effort initially focused on “energy savings, water savings, waste diversion, [and] scientists’ engagement,” which meant getting individual labs to change their practices. More-recent initiatives include university-wide equipment sharing programmes, which Ramirez-Aguilar says has not only saved energy and reduced unnecessary purchases, but improved equal access to resources. She says she hopes that in the future, CU’s lab start-up packages will include access to this shared equipment.
Green Life Science Efforts
Increasingly, green life science efforts are being regarded as part of larger, institute- or municipality-wide commitments to improve sustainability. The University of California (UC) system, for example, has partnered with My Green Lab as part of its pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025. The UC has also made it a goal to certify three laboratories on every campus under its umbrella by the end of 2022. Similarly, the University of Bristol adopted LEAF to reach a 2030 carbon neutrality target, set after the city of Bristol passed a resolution in 2015 to hit a similar target.
Because sustainability programmes are largely voluntary, it is difficult to know exactly how many laboratories have adopted green practices. Similarly, because academic institutions are large and labs may share building space, it can be hard to track how much energy purely behavioural initiatives save.
Still, the organisers of many green lab projects say energy is being saved and waste is diverted from landfills. LEAF’s pilot program, which took place from 2018 to 2020 at 23 universities, reportedly saved 648 tonnes of carbon, the equivalent of 140 passenger vehicles being taken off the road for those two years.
Recently, the University of British Columbia’s Michael Smith Laboratories (MSL), a group of more than 300 researchers participated in UBC’s Chill Up Challenge, its version of the Freezer Challenge competition organised by My Green Lab and the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL). The University saved 45,000 kilowatt hours of electricity in a year, equivalent to the annual usage of four single-family homes. Since 2009, CU Boulder’s Green Labs programme has saved 9.1 gigawatt hours of energy (equivalent to $1 million), as well as conserved 61 million gallons of water and diverted 376,000 pounds of waste.
Obstacles to Making Science More Sustainable
Overwhelmingly, sustainability coordinators and volunteers say that scientists are enthusiastic about making their research more environmentally friendly, even though they sometimes lack the tools and know-how to do it. But some also say that getting busy scientists to take action is a challenge as science is considered too important for its environmental impacts to be worth the actions. In addition, not all schools have the resources to put these programmes into practice. The challenge is funding.
Costs can accumulate in various ways. For example, some changes require support from technical staff and environmental health and safety experts, all of whom are ideally also trained in sustainability. At the University of Bristol, technicians, who are knowledgeable about how to adapt their lab’s protocols and practices, provided the necessary support for Bristol to reach 100% LEAF certification, but she also admitted that not all schools have this technical support.
Many waste mitigation strategies, as well as equipment procurement and replacement, are more demanding than scientists can do on their own and some are costly up front. Recycling can be an especially difficult organisational task, as many research products must be recycled outside the municipal waste stream. For example, there are only three companies in the United States which recycle single-use nitrile gloves, a laboratory fixture.
While many biotech companies have begun taking back plastic waste, the problem is often that it is restricted to items sold to customers. This means the lab needs to have multiple plastic bins in the lab for different suppliers, according to Andrew Arnott, a climate strategy, biodiversity and sustainability manager at the University of Edinburgh, which is attempting to incorporate recycling of these items into the municipal waste stream.
Long Term
Experts and environmentalists are calling for universities to provide labs with the needed up-front costs to reduce its carbon footprint. The University of Bristol, for example, has a fund to replace laboratory equipment with energy-efficient models, providing researchers with money they would save over the course of seven years. And they’re not alone; many other universities have similar programmes assisting laboratories to acquire green equipment.
Efforts towards Systemic Change
Despite growing enthusiasm for green laboratories, some proponents maintain they are working within a system that deprioritises sustainability. Certain behaviours such as plastic use remain entrenched in scientific practice and continue to increase. Making sustainable laboratory practices standard in research laboratories will require incentives for researchers and companies to divert waste and save energy. The climate crisis requires the spending of money on things which will not necessarily give us a quick payback.
Experts say that one way off involving the scientific environment in sustainability may be to tie grant funding to green practices. Prioritising sustainability when allocating research funding can drive the necessary changes. In the UK, some grant funding agencies are already welcoming sustainability statements in grant applications. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the UK’s national science funding agency, has expressed interest in adopting LEAF as a standard for laboratory sustainability and incorporating it into grant decisions. Green lab certification such as LEAF is very likely to be linked to grant funding opportunities in the next year or so.
The US may soon follow. In October, the Department of Health and Human Services released its Climate Action Plan which listed enacting sustainable grant policies as one of its priorities. However, so far, this has not yet translated into any changes in the grant application process for any federal funding agencies.
The National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) spokesperson, Elise Rabin, told The Scientist in an email that the agency is “aware of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) climate goals as outlined in the HHS 2021 Climate Action Plan. While NIH awaits further direction from HHS, it has been reviewing NIH policies to see how this can be achieved.
To push for faster change, My Green Lab and the 12 SL have sponsored an effort called Million Advocates for Sustainable Science, a letter-writing campaign to funding agencies requesting them to do their part to promote sustainability in research. Martin Howes, the assistant carbon manager at Cambridge University, says he hopes that researchers won’t view and talk about sustainability and research as separate issues for much longer. “We’ve long had a strong safety culture. Sustainability needs to be the next one of those needs to integrate with safety culture and best practice.”
Despite being in its infancy, green life science efforts are being seen as part of larger, institute- or municipality-wide commitments to improving sustainability.
