by Adam Carter, Global Products Manager, Thermo Fisher Scientific
For many scientists, the scale of the collective carbon footprint from scientific research can be a wake-up call. There is a considerable amount of waste material and energy consumption in research and clinical pipelines, from single-use plastic products that must be burned on disposal, to the dependency on equipment like freezers and centrifuges, which typically have high energy costs. As such, the life science sector is facing increasing pressure to adopt more sustainable practices to lower its environmental impact for the good of society.
There are many initiatives that champion the need to reduce the carbon footprint of science, and manufacturers and equipment providers are often leading the way. The latest advances in equipment manufacturing enable the development of reusable labware products made from non-toxic materials, and more energy-efficient equipment, such as ultra-low temperature (ULT) freezers that utilize sustainable manufacturing practices.
Coupled with these technological advances, important initiatives, such as the Accountability, Consistency and Transparency (ACT) program from My Green Lab, empower laboratory managers to make better-informed decisions when purchasing products to foster sustainability. The aim of such programs is to make it easier for laboratories to adopt green measures, and for the sector to embrace sustainability.
Manufacturers Are Leading the Way in Sustainability
Science industrial leaders are playing a key role in the development of new technologies that promote eco-friendly science. The emphasis on increasing the sustainability of scientific equipment and services is at the forefront of strategies for many businesses. Improvements are being made to the manufacturing pipeline from ‘dust to dust,’ (i.e., from the sourcing of materials and the manufacturing process all the way to how the product is disposed of at the end of life). This includes zero waste policies and using renewable energy sources in factories, using recyclable materials during manufacturing and shipping, and technical optimization of electrical equipment to reduce energy consumption.
For example, freezer units are one of the major sources of high energy consumption in laboratories. Many use ULT freezers to preserve and store thousands of samples over years and even over decades. With temperatures reaching -80°C, these are a significant source of energy use in laboratories. Therefore, anything that improves their efficiency will help reduce their environmental impact
Manufacturers have developed new ULT freezer units designed to meet the highest standards for protection and sustainability, and with a number of improvements to their technical specifications. The primary benefit is these new units have much lower energy usage – less than 9kWh/day, depending on size, compared to up to 30 kWh/day for older freezer types. Moreover, newer systems have long warm-up times (-80°C to -50°C takes up to 5 hours), meaning there is less energy expenditure after a rise in temperature from an event, such as the freezer door being left open. Overall, these developments produce less environmental heat emissions, as well as around a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions.
The life span of products is another area where manufacturers are improving sustainability. Equipment is increasingly being made with longer lifespans. There is an emphasis on high-quality systems that can serve a lab’s needs for longer periods, as well as mechanisms for equipment to be taken back at end of life for material repurposing and recycling. Overall, these new technologies and changes to manufacturing processes upgrade labs to become more environmentally friendly, while providing more cost-effective and efficient systems that also benefit the science.
My Green Lab
While technological advances are providing more sustainable options for equipment, other approaches help scientists change their practices when in the laboratory. These can range from helping scientists and laboratory managers to become more aware of green strategies, like recycling programs, to making purchasing choices around the environmental friendliness of different scientific reagent and equipment supply companies.
This is where initiatives like My Green Lab’s ACT standard are making an impact. My Green Lab is a non-profit organization that provides environmental assessment labels for laboratory products – the ACT label. This label dismantles information about each product, instrument and reagent into a number of categories, including information about manufacturing, user impact and end of life. By highlighting the accountability (A), consistency (C) and transparency (T) of the environmental impact of lab products, laboratories can easily compare and choose products before purchasing.
The hope is that My Green Lab sets a precedent for the sector at large and enables customers to make environmentally informed choices for hardware and services. In effect, this would put pressure on companies up and down the science equipment, reagent, and services supply chain to participate in, champion and drive science to be more sustainable.
Eco-friendly Science from Dust to Dust
Reducing the carbon footprint of science is the responsibility of everyone involved, from the use of renewable energy and reusable materials in the manufacturing process, to laboratories choosing more green products and using them in more sustainable ways. New drives in the industry are helping the life science sector to do just this. Many manufacturers are placing emphasis on improving sustainability of their products from dust to dust, reducing the carbon footprint of their products. At the same time, initiatives like My Green Lab’s ACT standard are capturing the drive for greener science, supporting scientists to convert that willpower into real results on sustainability.
About the Author: Adam Carter is Global Products Manager, Ultra-Low Temperature Freezers for Thermo Fisher Scientific. He has more than 13 years' experience in the Cold Storage business and currently leads Thermo Fisher Scientific's Cold Storage ACT label program.