Adding sustainability—such as reducing energy and waste—to existing laboratories makes today’s science greener and sets the tone for tomorrow’s scientists
Sustainability—a hip concept today—creates about 185 million hits on a Google search, but this is no new idea. In the United States, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 set sustainability as a national agenda “to create and maintain conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic and other requirements of present and future generations.” What better place to do that than in a science laboratory?
As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s website states: “Sustainability is based on a simple principle: Everything that we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment. To pursue sustainability is to create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations.”
To make science labs meet those criteria, researchers need to use less energy and create less waste. In many cases, scientists can build more sustainable labs for free; in other cases, a small investment generates a large return. According to Anna Lewis, sustainable labs officer at the University of Bristol in the U.K., “Around 40% of our environmental impact—energy, water and waste—is spent on 6% of our space, within our laboratories at Bristol.”
The idea of sustainable labs appears to be gaining support. “Interest in incorporating sustainability within research has definitely increased,” Lewis says. “I am contacted numerous time a week, whether it be about improving lab recycling, advice on efficient equipment or with suggestions of larger projects such as helium-recovery systems.”
Creating the culture
When asked how frequently people want to update existing labs to incorporate sustainability, Star Scott, green lab program coordinator at the University of Georgia in Athens, says, “Everybody thinks that it’s a good idea, but there can be a disconnect between attitudes and behaviors.” So just liking the idea doesn’t always translate into incorporating it.
For one thing, academic scientists probably have no idea how much energy their labs use, and they probably don’t pay their utility bills anyway. “At the University of Georgia,” says Scott, “energy is metered at the building level, so scientists have no clue [as to] how much water or other resources they are consuming.”
Working in the dark, sustainability enthusiasts must find ways to create a culture that supports a philosophy of efficiency. Even without knowing its amount of resource usage, a scientist can take the sustainability angle to save resources and gain funding. “There are incentives for green-lab participants in some grants,” says Scott, “and that can be your edge in the fiercely competitive funding environment.”
Increasing sustainability also improves safety. As Scott says, “There’s a strong correlation between green-lab initiatives and lab safety.” Reducing waste is one way to make a lab that exposes scientists to fewer hazardous situations.
Part of the sustainability process involves passing it forward. “It’s really important that you teach your graduate students to follow green initiatives, because they adopt your mentalities,” Scott explains.
Freebies first
To some scientists, adding sustainability to a lab might sound expensive. “Often people think they need fancy new equipment that they can’t afford,” Scott explains, “but there are so many things that you can do that cost you nothing.”
Scott could provide enough free ideas to fill this article, but here a just a couple: “Just closing a fume hood’s sash reduces its energy consumption by 60%,” she says. Likewise, keeping the door to a lab closed lets a fume hood work more efficiently, and reduces the burden on the heating and air conditioning system. “These systems were designed for closed rooms,” adds Scott.
At Bristol, Lewis and her colleagues put students to work saving energy. “This past summer we employed undergraduate interns to run energy ‘unplug’ and ‘shut the sash’ competitions in the synthetic chemistry department, which, if maintained would save [almost U.S. $35,000] per year,” she says.
Free things can make some of the biggest improvements. “Behavioral change is by far the most cost-effective way to make improvements in existing labs,” says Allison Paradise, executive director of My Green Lab (Los Gatos, Calif.). “Taking simple actions like turning off equipment, lights and faucets can all have a profound impact on the lab’s energy and water consumption.”
Similar steps in thinking can reduce a lab’s waste. Paradise encourages scientists to be “aware of what items can be recycled and take the steps to recycle them.” She adds, “Thinking about benign alternatives to hazardous chemicals is also a cost-effective way of improving safety and sustainability in the lab.”
Some equipment just needs replacing. At the University of Bristol, Lewis and her colleagues replaced all of the drying cabinets in the biomedical science, chemistry, earth science and geography departments with efficient models. “So far we’re saving [almost U.S. $40,000] per year in plug-load alone, and we were able to fully fund this and the units pay for themselves in under four years,” Lewis says.
Keeping your cool
Putting the freeze on wasted energy in a lab often starts with refrigeration. In fact, at the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2 SL) Annual Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Waltham, Mass.) received a 2016 Go Beyond Award for its TSX400 ultralow-temperature freezer. This freezer, according to company literature, uses as much as 50% less energy than one based on a conventional refrigerant.
It doesn’t take a new freezer to get better performance. Just like a residential freezer, a freezer lab works better if it’s defrosted regularly. Beyond the energy savings, a defrosted freezer keeps samples safer. “The ice buildup creates temperature pockets, and that makes uneven conditions,” Scott says. “So no action puts samples at a greater risk.”
Maybe you’re not sure how your lab might rate in sustainability. To find out, take the Green Lab Assessment (www.mygreenlab.org/green-lab-assessment.html). “It’s an excellent way for labs to learn about sustainability best practices,” Paradise says.
From simple behavioral changes to small improvements in technology, scientists can take a wide range of approaches to making a lab more sustainable. A little now goes a long way towards reducing energy use and waste.