Green Your Lab

91吃瓜网 Sustainable Labs program

The 91吃瓜网 Sustainable Labs Program, an initiative from 91吃瓜网 Sustainability, provides guidance and a voluntary certification designation for laboratory members to reduce the environmental impact of their lab activities.

The VSL program offers two resources:

Sustainable Lab Guide: This comprehensive guide for laboratory members offers practical strategies to minimize the environmental impact of lab activities.
Sustainable Lab Certification Program: Labs can voluntarily participate in this program by completing a self-certification form. After meeting impactful sustainability criteria, lab teams receive a sustainable lab certification badge, which can be showcased to highlight their commitment to sustainability.

The program is the result of collaborative efforts between EHSS and the Green Team, a group of researchers passionate about sustainability. Although the group originated in the Center for Structural Biology, ALL RESEARCHERS are encouraged to join!

Lab Sustainability Tips

The little things add up! Here are a few small things to help make a big impact!

Lab Lights
- Turn off the lights when the last person leaves the lab.
- Lighting makes up around 15% of energy in the lab. Simply turning off the lights when you leave the lab can have a significant impact.
- Turning off the lights during the day when ambient light is sufficient can even further reduce energy consumption.
Freezers
- Defrost, de-clutter and clean filters regularly.
- Adjusting an ultra-low freezer from -80 to -70 can save 30-40% on energy and extend freezer life.
Running Water
- Turn the water off when it doesn鈥檛 need to be running!
- If you鈥檙e washing glassware or filling up your flasks with water, a common practice may be to walk away while the faucet is running. This can lead to unnecessary overflow. Instead, always keep your eyes on a running water source.
- Alternatively, consider a timed water valve that runs for a certain amount of time or only discharges a certain amount of water, or install foot petals so you鈥檙e only pumping water when needed.
Autoclaves
- Autoclaves can use as much as 60 gallons of water per cycle. To help conserve water, consolidate loads for the autoclave and run it only when full.
- Don鈥檛 overload it, but don鈥檛 run it to sterilize a single box of pipette tips either.
- Implement proper maintenance schedules to reduce water consumption per cycle.
Glass and Metal
- Spreading E. coli on agar plates is a common technique, but it doesn鈥檛 have to involve plastic.
- Use glass or metal spreaders instead鈥攂oth are easy to sterilize and reuse.
Chemical Inventory
- Avoid over-purchasing chemicals and reduce the amount of chemical waste in your lab by maintaining an up-to-date chemical inventory log of all of the chemicals in the lab.
- Make the log available to all lab members to help save time, money and space!
Share and Engage
- Harness the power of collective action and share your knowledge with those around you.
- Try kicking off lab meetings with a 鈥淕reen Minute.鈥澛�Use this time to share a quick tip, spotlight a sustainable action someone took or introduce a new eco-friendly practice. It鈥檚 a small habit that builds awareness, encourages conversation, and keeps momentum going, one minute at a time.
- When motivated by energetic and passionate individuals, a confident community forms 鈥� one that works towards and achieves collective goals.
- After all ... sustainability isn鈥檛 a side task, it鈥檚 a shared mindset!

Nashville Sustainability Guide

tips for the eco-conscious scientist in Nashville

RCR Day Presentation: May 5, 2023

Checklist to reduce your lab鈥檚 carbon footprint

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