Microbiology labs achieve “Green lab” status

Labs have a greater environmental impact than offices by at least five times. Given that quite a few of the lab team are environmental scientists by training, we felt that it was about time we tackled this impact. So, in early 2023 we started our green lab accreditation adventures. We did this alongside two other lab teams, Graham Howell and the Ecosystems team, and Igor Kraev and the SEM suite. Our first base line assessment, before any recommendations were done, came back as gold standard so we were already doing a good deal to lessen our impact.  Ceri and I have been working hard to implement changes or communicate new practices since then. Examples of these include:

• A regular spot in the weekly newsletter on sustainability, letting you know what we’ve done and also asking for ideas.
• Regular pipette tip recycling.
• Established a plastic recycling bin for items such as the empty AzoWipe tubs.
• Reuse of media and reagent bottles for hazardous waste disposal.
• Encouragement of glassware use for culturing rather than plastic centrifuge tubes.
• Encouragement of glass Petri dish use as opposed to disposable plastic ones.
• Trial of ‘green’ agarose instead of standard agarose (supposed to use less carbon in the production of the agarose).
• Trial of ‘green’ gloves.
• Recycling of uncontaminated PPE.
• Project with Estates looking at the number of air changes in the labs.
• Graham encouraged us to switch lighting over to LED lighting.
• Entered the My Green Labs freezer challenge three years in a row, coming in the top 20% of all global participates in 2023. We are also slowly racking up all our -80s.
• Purchasing of ACT approved or more energy efficient equipment (e.g. oil-free vacuum pumps or energy efficient freezers).

One of the ideas that My Green Labs suggested to us after the baseline assessment was to get the whole team involved and nominate someone for each of the different areas of the My Green Lab assessment. The current contacts and their areas are listed in the table below – if you have any suggestions for sustainability improvements, please contact them directly.

Upon the accreditation assessment in February 2024, unexpectedly, we ranked as “Green lab”, the highest accolade we could have achieved. However, we are not ready to sit back on our laurels, we can be more sustainable still and we still have actions to complete from the assessment.

We are so proud to have achieved this and we thank you to all those who put in work to help us achieve this and helping us be better for the planet.