If your lab hasn't taken action to become more sustainable, you might not receive as much funding as you used to.
Funding bodies are still standing by their word, limiting funding to labs that invest in sustainability.
Let’s go through what’s new and how your lab can navigate it:
Today's Lesson: Funding Body Policies
How sustainable practices become a requirement
Number Of The Day
Wellcome Trust, an UK based funding body, had invested of over £1.57 billion in science during the 2023/2024 fiscal year. That places them among the largest funding bodies worldwide. This is why their commitment matters so much - it sets a clear signal for the recognition of sustainable practices in the laboratory. Here’s what they included in their policy and it means for you:
1 570 000 000
Convincing Leadership To Quantify
If you visit the webpage of one of the world’s biggest funders, you’ll find the following statement:
“Wellcome will only fund research that is conducted responsibly. To be responsible, research must be conducted in an environmentally sustainable way.”
In 2024, for the first time, funders announced that they will only support labs that submit information about their sustainability.
Moreover, some will only fund labs that achieve a recognized sustainability certification.
This is from the Cancer Research UK Website - sharing the same requirements as Wellcome. Read it all here.
In a previous lesson, I discussed this news when it first broke. We also invited representatives from Wellcome to speak at our last summit and the recording will be available in this year’s summit too.
As mentioned, funding bodies such as the German DFG have followed suit, requiring applicants to outline which sustainable practices are implemented in their labs.
How It All Happened
As many funding bodies are run by current and former scientists, they have been aware of the environmental impacts of science too.
And they have taken notice of their responsibility to drive sustainability in labs. Experts such as Martin Farley, the team at I2SL (myself included), and My Green Lab have worked for years to raise awareness among funding bodies.
The main reason for the hesitation of funding bodies: they lacked the necessary knowledge about sustainability in science, and they didn’t want to give the impression that sustainability should outweigh scientific progress.
This is the DFG’s announcement to anchor sustainability in their guidelines. If you read it, you can sense the back and forth – “two years of discussions”, is all I need to point out, I guess.
However, once these concerns were resolved, Wellcome, UKRI, and DFG made a move that sparked something bigger:
In October 2024, representatives from major research institutions and European funding bodies met in Heidelberg to discuss sustainability in research policies.
Where We Stand Today
The outcome of the meeting: they signed the Heidelberg Agreement, officially recognizing sustainability as a factor in funding decisions.
These seven funding bodies are the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Dutch Research Council (NWO), Foundation for Polish Science (FNP), French National Research Agency (ANR), German Research Foundation (DFG), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Wellcome Trust. Participating institutions involved European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and National Centre for Scientific Research one of the largest research agency in Europe.
In the US, although the current administration is not particularly supportive of sustainability, the My Green Lab Certification and ACT Ecolabel Program have been officially recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) Program.
Moreover, the U.S. Department of Energy has published a white paperwith the University of California on energy savings.
You can read the LinkedIn post on the change here and the news here.
In Asia, the focus on laboratory sustainability is still relatively new, however, in events like the Thailand Lab International 2024 we find entire sessions dedicated to the topic.
In developing regions such as South America and Africa, sustainable practices are often common sense for cost-saving benefits. However, we see great interest from African scientists in our ReAdvance initiatives - a big shout-out to you guys!
What This Means for You
I felt this statement from Wellcome was quite programmatic:
“Researchers across all fields should demonstrate how they will reduce the emissions and natural resources used in their research.”
If you’re applying for funding from one of these agencies, you will need:
To write a short report—similar to those required for animal work, ethics, or statistics.
From autumn 2025, Wellcome and CRUK will require certification by a recognized program such as My Green Lab or LEAF (at least silver level)
In the future, you might have to report on the footprint of your lab.
Applying The Knowledge
Reporting on your practices can range from half a page to two pages of explanations.
However, certifications are more thorough: they involve a self-assessment of multiple aspects, including energy use, plastics, single-use items, reagents, and travel. On average, certification takes 4–8 months to complete.
Here’s my personal advice for navigating these changes:
Share the message with your colleagues so you’re not caught off guard. Whether or not they like sustainability, they should be prepared—otherwise resentment is likely.
If you haven’t started yet
Collect ideas for improvements as they come to mind and refer to our previous lesson.
Begin with small, easy-to-implement changes. Early action is key. For example, DFG is currently satisfied if you simply show that you’ve started.
Identify teammates who might join you in driving change—this adds motivation and will be crucial later on.
Raise the topic in your next lab meeting—you might get more support than expected.
If you’ve already taken action
Try to formalize your changes. For instance, it may take some thought to describe “optimized pipetting orders” in a report.
Measure baselines and track results. This evidence will be powerful, though it gets harder to measure the baseline the further you’ve already progressed.
Taking these simple steps will already put you ahead of 95% of labs that have done little or nothing.
And that could give you an advantage when securing funding.
Upcoming Lesson:
Your Sustainability Summit
How We Feel Today
If you have a wish or a question, feel free to reply to this Email. Otherwise, wish you a beautiful week! See you again on the 18th : )
Edited by Patrick Penndorf Connection@ReAdvance.com Lutherstraße 159, 07743, Jena, Thuringia, Germany Data Protection & Impressum If you think we do a bad job: Unsubscribe
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