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Progress report on sustainability
The ‘us’ in sustainability is helping EMBL update the way it does scientific research
By Brendan Rouse, Head of Sustainability, EMBL
With more than 100 independent research groups at six different locations across Europe, EMBL has been taking a comprehensive approach to achieving lab sustainability. And it shows.
Earlier in October, the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) recognised EMBL with its Outstanding Lab Programs and Initiatives Award for 2024.
I joined EMBL as its first Environmental Officer in 2020, and it’s been exciting to see the organisation embrace the staff-led sustainability strategy released in 2021. That strategy provided ways to significantly reduce environmental impacts by 2030, with goals of reducing energy consumption, use of plastics in labs, and work-related travel.
Today, we see involvement throughout the organisation, as staff share a goal of helping the organisation move forward. A large part of our research involves using fundamental science to tackle societal challenges, such as climate change or biodiversity loss. Therefore, it makes sense that we should minimise the negative environmental impact of our work and avoid unnecessarily contributing to any environmental problems that our work might help address.
As a world-class life sciences research institute, EMBL is committed to environmentally responsible and relevant research while promoting sustainable science in the process. The I2SL award offers an opportunity to take stock of the progress we’ve made, thanks to the gratifying and impressive level of commitment to sustainability at EMBL. Here is a nice sample of the organisation’s achievements:
1. Minimising laboratory waste
To reduce waste in labs, EMBL Heidelberg introduced recycling bins for mixed cardboard and paper, as well as plastic and metal packaging materials in 2023, recycling more than 66 tons of waste last year. EMBL also established pipette tip box recycling at its Heidelberg-based headquarters, and this helped divert 15 cubic metres of pipette tip boxes to a local plastic recycler. In addition to this, other EMBL sites have implemented a supplier return scheme to collect and return empty pipette tip boxes to suppliers.
To illustrate the amount of plastic waste created by research activities, members of the EMBL Heidelberg Green Action group created an art exhibition using the tip boxes that were collected for recycling, displaying only four weeks of collected tip boxes as an impressive waterfall of plastic. These initiatives have contributed to a 30% reduction in the amount of waste being sent to landfills and waste-to-energy from EMBL’s headquarters since 2022, bringing EMBL’s recycling rate to 39% in 2023.
Additionally, to help meet a goal of removing non-essential single-use plastics from EMBL’s sites by 2025, the organisation supports the use of glassware for applicable experiments.
2. Turning a new LEAF
To encourage behaviour change among researchers, in 2023, EMBL set and reached a goal of having all of its 82 wet labs sign up to implement practices that meet the standards of the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF) – an international standard designed to reduce carbon emissions and improve the sustainability and efficiency of laboratories. LEAF awards bronze, silver, and gold awards for increasing measures to improve lab operations in this manner.
At EMBL, 61 labs received LEAF certification in 2023, and seven have already been recognised with LEAF gold awards. LEAF has encouraged expanded recycling in labs. At the same time, laboratory energy audits have been carried out by the Scientific Instrumentation Management Team and ULT freezers across the organisation have had their temperature raised to -70°C to conserve energy.
3. Adopting energy-efficient data practices
Because data services constitute EMBL’s largest electricity use, our data centre teams have taken the initiative to implement strategies such as automatic node shutdown, limited processor frequencies, improved cooling, transferring to more efficient data centres, and consolidating data.
4. Connecting for a shared aim
EMBL helped create the Sustainable European Laboratories Network, a network of national and international green lab groups, to promote sustainable science and allow members to share their knowledge to help transition European research laboratories into more sustainable facilities.
Marching forward towards sustainability
Thanks to these efforts, EMBL reduced energy use across all its sites by 4.4 million kilowatt hours of electricity in 2023, which is 19% lower than in 2021. Energy use reductions have also decreased the organisation’s Scope 1 and 2 emissions from 13,878 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2019 to 10,659 tCO2e by 2023, a reduction of 23%.
These represent important milestones for EMBL to become a more sustainable organisation, but naturally, our work is not done. We look forward to reducing emissions even further, increasing recycling, and fully eliminating single-use plastics, among other goals set out in the EMBL Sustainability Strategy. So, stay tuned as EMBL continues its progress in this area, helping to raise the bar for what it means to conduct sustainable science.
During this year of EMBL’s 50th anniversary, the organisation has not only celebrated past achievements and milestones, but also looked forward to the work happening now that will likely make its historical mark as well. This article represents impacts that are also ‘making history’.
