Sustainable labs – case studies

Created almost entirely from renewable materials, every component of the building has been evaluated based on its carbon footprint. Peter notes “the building works almost like an organism, waking up and going to sleep depending on people’s needs.”

From undergraduate through to PhD level, the laboratory is training graduates in high quality chemistry and material science through the narrative of sustainability.     

The laboratory has a wide portfolio concerned with real world challenges that need to be addressed, but Peter notes the answer to these problems need to be “smarter, faster and ultimately more sustainable.”

The Carbon Neutral Laboratory is an evolving experiment and the lessons learned will inspire and lead the next generation of laboratories and researchers. Always adapting and learning, the knowledge can be shared through an open-source approach.

Peter reflected on his learnings from the process: “What I have learned from this experiment, is that as a community, we shouldn’t be scared of making changes. Sometimes change is necessary, we need to make the chemistry for tomorrow. To do this we need to have the right approach, in the right environment, in the right facilities.”

He said the key to reducing the environmental footprint of labs is to question everything: “There’s always an operational need for certain work to be done in a lab and we’re very conscious of that. What we’re trying to do is look at the operational need and ask questions, such as, ‘Why is that piece of kit on all the time? Does it need to be on all the time?’. If the answer is no, we take action to cut our environmental footprint.”

This approach has seen Lee roll out a series of small-scale initiatives to improve the environmental sustainability of day-to-day lab activities – in everything from replacing the School of Pharmacy’s water condensers with air condensers in order to conserve water, to increasing the temperature of certain freezers in order to reduce electricity usage without impacting the samples within and purchasing a solvent recycling system, so solvents can be recycled and not incinerated. Combined, these initiatives have made a big difference.

Having studied environmental chemistry herself, Vicky has always been interested in changing the way that STEM subjects are taught in order to put greater emphasis on sustainability in every course and ensure the environmental footprint of research is considered at all times.

She said: "I’ve always wanted to look at sustainability as an opportunity rather than the handling of doom and problems. We have an opportunity to do things better rather than just mopping up issues."

Vicky has designed template teaching materials on sustainability and systems thinking which lecturers of STEM subjects can ‘pick up and drop in’ to their modules, and thereby embed sustainability into the curriculum. The hope is that this will drive a cultural change and get students into the habit of thinking differently.

The teaching materials are being trialed in UCL, the University of Birmingham and Keele University, and so far, the response from students has been fantastic.

"The students think this should have happened years ago," Vicky said, "It’s all about student input and student empowerment because they’re going to be the agents of sustainability in the future, so it’s important that they develop the relevant skills."

Under the 'People' category, an in-person induction on sustainable practices is a prerequisite to working in the UCL Physical Chemistry Lab. The technical team attend monthly department-organised sustainability meetings where best practice and resources are shared. We actively encourage undergraduate students to adopt sustainable practices. Posters of waste streams and Green Chemistry have been produced and displayed around the chemistry labs, guiding students to use the sustainable practices described. After all, they will be the chemists of the future. I also prioritise suppliers who use sustainable packaging and recycle chemical containers, often challenging them to adopt sustainable practice.

'Sample and Chemical Management' regarding a sustainability gold standard (LEAF) award: I keep a local chemical inventory that is audited, annually checking labels and condition of the chemicals. All chemicals are catalogued with a specific code per item and the departmental Quartzy  list updated once the audit is completed. Redundant chemicals identified are offered to the rest of the department. There is also a practice of repurposing excess solutions, any surplus acid, bases or general solutions are diluted down or concentrated up for use in another experiment or for cleaning instead of being disposed. A back up cold storage was sourced should our fridge fail, minimising potential degradation of chemicals.

Equipment is turned off immediately when not in use reducing energy usage and phantom power draw while maximising the lifetime of the equipment. Surplus and redundant equipment is recycled via Warp It Ltd. An example of this was finding a new ‘home’ for redundant water purifying cartridges and acquiring vial trays for teaching. Outside of teaching term, specialist equipment like potentiostats, conductivity meters and spectrophotometers etc are available for research staff to borrow through our lab’s loans system.

For the ‘Ventilation’ category, the fume cupboards are serviced annually, the phase velocity is set to 0.4 m/s and the sashes are always closed when not in use. Any malfunction that affects the ventilation or services in the lab is immediately reported to estates. Vacuum pumps and inhouse vacuum are always used with a -78˚cold trap to condense any volatile vapours. The acetone used in the foam Dewars is recycled for future use in cold traps.

With the actions taken above I hope to be successful in my application for the gold LEAF award. I have also volunteered to deliver some LEAF peer auditing of labs which will allow the community to share best practice and learn from one another. Hopefully, the LEAF programme will encourage more labs to engage with sustainable practices and make their contribution towards a greener environment.