By Allison Hunter
Sustainability Organisations:
UK:
Two funders so far will be looking for sustainable lab practices as part of funding applications:
Wellcome sets environmental sustainability standards for researchers
- Laboratories should achieve the minimum level of accreditation offered by LEAF, My Green Lab or equivalent by the end of 2025.
- Desk, field, clinical, and other researchers: should use a tool appropriate to their setting to assess the environmental impact of their work and to track their efforts to reduce it. A list of currently available tools can be found in the ‘table of initiatives’ which was compiled as part of the RAND Research Sustainability report.
Cancer Research UK will require at least LEAF silver certification by 2026:
Environmental sustainability in research
Europe:
European funders and organizations partner to promote sustainable research – October 2024
Heidelberg Agreement:
A significant step forwards in changing research practices towards sustainability has been taken with the publication of the Heidelberg Agreement on Environmental Sustainability in Research Funding. The agreement provides a framework for research funders to play an active role and incentivize sustainable practices in research. It outlines principles for transitioning to a more sustainable research system and practical recommendations on how to implement sustainability in funding schemes.
The Heidelberg Agreement involves multi-stakeholder alignment. Representatives from European funding agencies, research organizations, grassroots initiatives, social scientists and experts from nine different European countries collaborated on its development, including Medical Research Council (MRC), UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) and Wellcome.
https://zenodo.org/records/13938809
Irish Green Labs:
Aim
Our central aim is to minimise the negative impact that Irish laboratory work has on the environment.
Mission
To provide an open, transparent platform for Irish lab workers wishing to adopt more sustainable practices.
Irish Green Labs
UN Sustainable Development Goals:
Contribution goal by goal | KnowSDGs (europa.eu)
If you click on each SDG it highlights existing tools available.
The mapper tool is designed to scan your uploaded documents and it will search the text and provide and outline to the relevant SDGs contained within it: SDG Mapper Intro | KnowSDGs
Two sustainable lab programmes:
Both frameworks enable individual lab managers (academic staff, technical staff, teaching lab. managers) from all departments to quantify their environmental and financial impact.
My Green Lab (My Green Lab)
The My Green Lab Certification program is designed to give laboratories actionable ways to improve their environmental performance through a continuous improvement process. The My Green Lab Certification programme comprises the following:
A 5 step programme:
Baseline Assessment Survey – Using an online self-assessment survey, individual members of the participating lab are asked a series of questions.
Implement Changes – Using My Green Lab recommendations as guidelines, lab personnel are encouraged to take some time (typically ~6 months) to make changes in their laboratory
Certification – After a number of changes are made, members of the lab retake the online self-assessment survey. The extent of progress in adopting best practices in the lab through the responses provided to us is quantified. Subsequently, the lab receives an overall score (in percentage) and a certification level.
Implement More Changes – After the initial certification, the lab must re-certify within two years to maintain their certified status.
Re-Certification – When the lab is ready for re-certification, they retake the online self-assessment survey to see what best practices are still implemented and where they might make future changes.
The categories include community, recycling & waste reduction, resource management, purchasing, green chemistry and green biologics, water, plug load, fume hoods, cold storage, large equipment, infrastructure energy, field work, animal research and travel (each category is available where applicable).
There are five levels of certification: bronze, silver, gold, platinum, and green. The level of certification is determined by the score on the certification assessment. It reflects both– the percentage of possible green lab best practices that have been adopted and the extent to which they have been adopted by the lab.
The Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF) is an environmental accreditation scheme designed to improve sustainability within higher education teaching and research.
The framework enables individual lab managers (academic staff, technical staff, teaching lab. managers) from all departments to quantify their environmental and financial impact. The LEAF programme comprises the following:
- Participating labs are given a list of environmental actions on an online platform broken down into Bronze, Silver and Gold categories to complete. Each action within the categories is clear and easy to implement.
- The categories include waste, travel, energy, water, procurement, and research quality. Each action is supported by a rationale as well as evidenced guidance to help implement it.
- Carbon calculators are included within the online toolkit enabling labs to estimate the current sustainability performance of their lab and track improvements as they implement changes.
- Labs can decide on bronze, silver or gold level award and have the opportunity in the following year to improve (if required).
Clinical trials sustainability
Sustainable Clinical Trials: How the Industry is Going Green in 2024 – Clinixir
- A strategy to reduce the carbon footprint of clinical trials
- Adshead, Fiona et al.
- The Lancet, Volume 398, Issue 10297, 281 – 282
- “Everybody planning a trial should perform a systematic review and search trial registries to confirm the trial is needed to justify the value of the information and the value of the carbon used during a trial. Ideally, triallists would estimate the carbon footprint of the trial when they apply for a grant, find ways to reduce the carbon footprint as low as possible—eg, using the NIHR guidelines (NIHR Carbon Reduction Guidelines | NIHR)—and plan to measure the carbon footprint of the intervention and comparator as outcome measures of the trial.”
- The future of the global clinical trial ecosystem: a vision from the first WHO Global Clinical Trials Forum Moorthy, Vasee et al. The Lancet, Volume 403, Issue 10422, 124 – 126
Office sustainability
Green Impact (Green Impact | Students Organising for Sustainability | Green Impact is SOS-UK’s sustainability engagement programme for teams) is a UN award-winning programme, run internationally by SOS-UK (Students Organising for Sustainability UK).
It is based around learning and awards to supports environmentally and socially sustainable practice within organisations. It suggests what people can do in their workplace to make a difference and guides them how to do this in an accessible but meaningful way, creating a widespread culture of sustainability. Green Impact follows a cyclical process over approximately 12 months.
Computing sustainability
Green DiSC is a new certification scheme which provides a roadmap for research groups and institutions who want to tackle the environmental impacts of their computing activities.
Green DiSC: a Digital Sustainability Certification | Software Sustainability Institute
Environmental impact of IT: desktops, laptops and screens | IT Services (ox.ac.uk)
https://www.green-algorithms.org/
Environmental impacts of computing in health & life sciences research (eicworkshop.info)
