Sustainable labs save energy, reduce waste, and drive innovation. Discover why greening your lab matters — and how you can get started today.
Ready to get started? Here are a few simple actions you can take today to make your lab greener, safer, and more efficient.
Save Energy
Turn off idle equipment
Power down equipment when not in use to save energy, extend equipment lifespan, and reduce your carbon footprint. Simple power management can reduce energy use by 10-30%.
Reduce Waste
Limit single-use plastics
Switch to reusable glassware when safe. Explore tip-washing and leverage take-back programs and alternative waste treatment methods. Track actions to quantify impact and inspire your team’s waste reduction efforts.
Conserve Water
Eliminate single-pass cooling systems
Replace single-pass cooling with closed-loop or recirculating systems. Save thousands of gallons of water and reduce safety risks in your lab.
Use Green Chemistry
Apply green chemistry principles in your lab
Maintain a chemical inventory to minimize overpurchasing and reduce chemical hazards by choosing greener alternatives. Reduce costs and improve safety in the lab.
How Biogen made 100% of their labs more sustainable
Biogen empowered lab teams to embed sustainable practices into daily work — proving that small, practical actions can green labs across an entire organization.
My Green Lab has been instrumental in helping UAB build a large, robust, engaged lab sustainability program. Their platform allowed us to quickly enroll many labs, proving that we should adopt an institution-wide approach. This enabled UAB to focus more time on addressing more upstream laboratory efficiency issues.
Daily lab practices can lead to measurable environmental and cost-saving benefits. Here’s the impact of key green lab actions.
reduction of freezer energy by raising ultra-low temperature freezers from -80°C to -70°C.
gallons saved annually by switching to recirculating water systems.
saved annually by cutting energy use by 50% in U.S. lab (plus – 19 million tons less carbon emissions).
See how labs around the world are taking action, saving resources, and inspiring change through sustainable practices.
Ready to transform your lab?
Join labs around the world in building a more sustainable future through My Green Lab® Certification.
Our certification and tools set the global benchmark, driving measurable ROI.
