Our Lab Committed to Sustainability with My Green Lab Certification – Here’s How It Went

by Christian Stadler, MS 

The My Green Lab Certification process helped our cell biology lab benchmark, improve, and build awareness of more sustainable science

 

As an R&D scientist for the Carlsbad, California-based Cell Biology Custom Services team at Thermo Fisher Scientific, I spend most of my day working to deliver custom media, cell lines, mRNAs, viral vectors, and other unique solutions to my peers in the field.  

For a long time, environmental sustainability was not at the top of my priority list – but after recent participation in My Green lab’s certification process, I now find myself thinking about my environmental impact as a scientist nearly every day and wondering how I can improve.  

Here is the journey that changed my perspective on sustainability.  

The Catalyst: Why We Chose to Get Certified

In my role I work with customers from many backgrounds, from academic to biotech and beyond.  

Recently, I’ve noticed that customers and collaborators across the board have been asking our team for information about our lab’s sustainability measures and accreditations.  

Our lab did have sustainability practices in place, but we began to wonder if there was room for improvement in evaluating our best practices – benchmarking, reducing our impact, and communicating our efforts in a more standardized way to customers.  

To determine our true level of sustainability, we decided to work with the non-profit My Green Lab and join their growing lab sustainability certification program.  

The Learning Curve: Educating and Building Awareness 

The program begins with a baseline assessment. Our team was tested on 14 different areas related to our work via a 150+ question assessment. We were scored according to which sustainability practices we already had in place and how aware each team member was of these practices.  

From there, we received a feedback report outlining strengths and areas of improvement. For the next 9 months, we were tasked with identifying and enacting changes based on thereport’s findings and then with building awareness across the team of these changes. Examples of this include learning about our large site’s ongoing sustainability initiatives that we were not aware of, such as manufacturer take-back programs, retrofitted water-cooled equipment, solar initiatives, and more. 

The program places a lot of emphasis on team awareness and knowledge of sustainability, which we saw reflected in our assessment scores.  

Embracing Change: The Steps to Improvement 

Though the certification assessment considers 14 key areas of sustainability opportunity, including purchasing, resource management, energy infrastructure, travel policy, and more, our lab group focused on the area of recycling and waste reduction for daily consideration. 

Armed with the findings of our baseline report, our team held weekly meetings to discuss current measures of sustainability and the feasibility of possible changes. Alternating between discussion meetings and working meetings down in the labs, we found a nice balance of identifying areas of improvement and getting things done.  

Over the course of the next 9 months, we implemented a range of new sustainability efforts: 

• Made a proper recycle guide after consulting with our recycling contractor and safety teams 
• Designed and made over 30+ new signs for each type of disposal in our labs 
• Advocated for site-wide usage of sustainability programs such as chip recycling
• Built new training material for sustainability best practices using these learnings 

These involved many lab walkthroughs with our Facilities and Environmental Health & Safety teams and even taking pictures of items on our phones and sending them to our recycling contractor to see if they would take it. I learned that it really is up to you to learn about your lab and your site, and even more so to make a change.  

The Final Hurdle: Assessment and Results 

After we felt we had made substantial changes to our labs, we were ready to attempt the certification. The final assessment was a team effort, with over 20 of our colleagues taking that same 150+ question evaluation. Coordinating a large group of people in taking a sustainability assessment took effort, but I noticed that colleagues and leaders across the board felt motivated to make it happen; truly, lab sustainability takes a village and the payoff can be satisfying.  

In the end, we were able to score in the highest level of My Green Lab’s Certification, Green, with practical changes and focused effort.  

I am truly very grateful for the support of my peers and managers. Whether that was listening to my lectures in team meetings, giving their own ideas or concerns, or coming together to make changes around the labs, it all made the difference. 

Conclusion: The Journey Continues 

All in all, it took about 13 months for us to get from the starting baseline assessment to when we received our ‘Green’ Certification! 

With the weekly meetings, team presentations, work sessions, and numerous emails you need to consider what will work best for your team. I have gained a strong appreciation for those who take on the burden of battling sustainability concerns, as it can be a thankless job. The work does not end here either, as our team is continuing to build on the changes made throughout our process. 

Overall, I’ve learned that you will get out what you put in with certification and lab greening programs like the My Green Lab opportunity. You and your team have the opportunity to decide what kind of change you want to see – whether for yourself, the team, the planet, or even just cost savings.  

 

Here are a few big things to consider when thinking about undergoing certification:  

Who and what to certify 

• Thoroughly consider size of labs and number of colleagues to get involved  
• Decide which labs are relevant to the changes you will be enacting  

Awareness and education  

• Most of the program and assessment is based in team awareness and knowledge of sustainability  

• If working with a core certification team, make sure to get the whole team involved early  

Collaborating across departments  

• Collaboration with EHS, facilities, and waste/recycling contractors is critical  
• Your team should make the efforts to understand your site better  

Time commitment  

• What you put in is what you will get out  
• Our certification took 13 months from start to finish  

Whether you are a scientist, lab manager, associate, team leader, or any member of a research team, I encourage you to take the leap and try this journey for yourself. I hope my team’s journey has broadened your perspective, and I have linked below some of the resources you can use to get started and hit the ground running. 

» Learn more about sustainable product design

Want to read more stories like this? Subscribe to Connect to Science, your portal for life science news.

Related Resources

• My Green Lab Certification (My Green Lab) 
• Greener by Design (Thermo Fisher Scientific) 
• Cell Culture Products Designed for Sustainability (Thermo Fisher Scientific) 
• Top 5 Lab Sustainability Myths, Busted (Connect to Science) 
• Cell Biology Custom Services (My team) 

 

##
© 2024 Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of Thermo Fisher Scientific and its subsidiaries unless otherwise
specified.

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.