The conversation around laboratory sustainability has moved from awareness to execution.
Stephanie Millar, Vice President of Strategic Growth at Impact Laboratories and My Green Lab, has been at the center of that shift, working directly with laboratory teams and leaders across pharma, biotech, healthcare, and research.
“What stands out most from these conversations is how much the discussion has matured,” Millar said. “A few years ago, organizations were asking why lab sustainability matters. Today, they are focused on effective execution that can be implemented at scale.”
The questions are now operational: How do scientists participate without distracting from their crucial research? How should results be measured and reported? Which laboratory practices can be adjusted to support cost control, efficiency, culture, and long-term business goals? And how can organizations apply them consistently across global portfolios?
My Green Lab Certification 2.0 was designed for this shift. One year after its release, five lessons have emerged about what organizations need to make environmental performance part of their everyday laboratory operations.
Lesson One: Making Sustainability Practical for the Life Sciences Industry
Sustainability must feel practical before it can become routine. Laboratory teams respond to initiatives that feel achievable and compatible with their work.
“Scientists are mission-driven and data-oriented,” Millar said. “They respond when a change naturally fits into their existing workflow and the evidence proves that the effort would be worthwhile.”
In Millar’s experience, the strongest results do not belong exclusively to organizations with the largest budgets or the most mature ESG programs. They come from organizations that empower scientists early, give local sustainability champions visible leadership support, and connect the work directly to organizational priorities.
My Green Lab Certification provides a consistent framework, but internal leadership will determine whether it is a short-term initiative or becomes embedded in an organization’s culture and sustainability strategy.
Lesson Two: Simplicity and Rigor Reinforce Each Other
Feedback on the previous version of My Green Lab Certification revealed that organizations want credible assessment and reporting without unnecessary administrative demands on laboratory teams. In response, the 2.0 version of the program reduced the engagement survey for most laboratory members to 10–15 minutes. It also introduced Lab Lead and Organization Administrator roles, centralized reporting, and the Impact Estimator tool, which converts reported actions into estimated energy, carbon, water, waste, and financial savings.
“One of the things I appreciate most about working in sustainable science is that continuous improvement is already deeply embedded in the mindset of the people we work with,” Millar said. “The industry understands experimentation and iteration. Progress is rarely linear. What matters is building systems that grow stronger over time by testing out new ideas and processes.”
These updates create the infrastructure organizations need to move from a collection of individual laboratory projects to a coordinated sustainability program. Simplicity increases participation, while defined roles and shared data strengthen accountability. Lab Leads can guide implementation at the local level, while Organization Administrators can identify trends, track participation, compare progress, and support consistency across sites and regions.
Lesson Three: Measurable Results Are Driving Executive Engagement
Environmental programs gain executive attention when leaders can see a positive impact on their people, how much money or resources were saved, and where the next opportunity could lie.
Over the past year, Millar has seen laboratory sustainability enter conversations about operating costs, energy management, procurement, employee engagement, risk, and corporate reporting. The subject has moved beyond a specialist function and into decisions that shape the organization.
“After several successful global rollouts, we have learned how to turn pilot results into clear implementation plans for broader adoption,” Millar said.
Sustaining this progress requires shared ownership across the organization, rather than placing responsibility on a single team.
“We are seeing much stronger coordination across departments,” Millar said. “Environmental teams are no longer working in isolation. Facilities, operations, scientists, procurement, and executive leadership are working toward shared objectives for laboratory sustainability.”
This kind of systematic integration makes the work more durable. It is more consequential when environmental performance becomes part of how the whole organization manages its laboratories rather than a project maintained by a small number of committed people.
Lesson Four: Scale Requires Common Standards and Local Relevance
A clinical diagnostic laboratory, an academic chemistry lab, and a global pharmaceutical research facility may share many sustainability opportunities, but they do not operate under identical constraints. Programs that span sites, regions, and different laboratory functions still need one consistent definition of good performance and enough local discretion to apply it safely. The standard should remain consistent, while local teams determine how to meet it within the requirements of their science, facilities, and geography.
“The standard has to be consistent, but its application cannot be rigid,” Millar said. “Organizations need clear expectations, while laboratory teams need room to apply them responsibly within their own operating conditions.”
Organizations also want to understand how their laboratories compare with peers and what levels of performance are realistic for different laboratory types.
“Demand for benchmarking tells us that organizations do not want to improve in isolation,” Millar said. “They want to learn from peers, understand what strong performance looks like, and use shared data to raise expectations across the sector.”
These insights are actively shaping the continued improvement of My Green Lab Certification. As with the most recent 2.0 iteration, future revisions will be informed by customer experience, stakeholder expertise, emerging research, regulatory developments, and improved environmental data. This disciplined review process will keep the program relevant and credible as industry expectations change.
Lesson Five: Early Results Give Leaders a Business Case
Over 3,000 laboratories enrolled in My Green Lab Certification 2.0 during its first year, with 815 of them currently certified. Their results demonstrate meaningful savings and give leaders evidence of the environmental and financial case for better laboratory practices.
Commercial pharmaceutical and biotech laboratories averaged more than 215,000 kWh in annual energy savings, and more than $63,000 in annual cost savings per lab. Academic laboratories, which are typically smaller with less staff and equipment, averaged 86,704 kWh in annual energy savings and more than $28,000 in annual cost savings.
“The data is changing the nature and level of the conversation,” Millar said. “Laboratory teams can see how their actions add up, environmental leaders can assess progress to goals, and executives can understand the value of better laboratory practices. Data drives momentum and scale.”
The numbers do more than document past activity. They help leaders decide where to focus next, which practices merit wider adoption, and where additional support is most likely to produce a return.
Laboratory Decarbonization Is Becoming an Operating Standard
Environmental responsibility can no longer sit apart from research quality. Resource waste, preventable energy use, and inefficient operating practices carry financial and environmental costs. They need to be managed with the same priority as other forms of inefficiency and risk. The organizations that establish higher sustainability expectations now will define what responsible scientific leadership looks like in the years ahead.
“The goal is not to create a small group of exemplary laboratories,” said Millar. “It is to reach a point where avoidable waste and resource intensity are viewed as operational shortcomings. We still have work to do, but a little over one year into My Green Lab Certification 2.0, I am more optimistic than ever about the direction of the industry. The model has been proven, and the path to scale is becoming clear. With nearly half a million laboratories worldwide, we are only beginning to realize the environmental and business impact that is possible.”