My key takeaway today is that there are more resources out there than you might expect.
Even I, someone who has been actively engaged with sustainability in science for a few years, still get surprised from time to time.
So before you build anything yourself, Google it first - there’s no shame in that. We can use your time where it matters most.
That said, here’s a list of tools and resources that are otherwise hard to discover and that shall give you a sense of what exists:
Sustainability Starter Guides
I really like these guides — they’re great if you want to get (or give someone else) a quick overview of the topic.
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Several universities now have some guides like this - maybe yours too!
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Practical templates
Then, I put together a few useful templates for you.
They’re not revolutionary, but they can save you hours of work and might give you a heads-up on aspects you may have missed.
Keeping your freezer organized will help ensure you don’t lose samples and will reduce door opening times — protecting both your samples and your freezer’s health by avoiding compressor overload.
Freezer Organization Template – Keeping Your Freezer Organized
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Then, I put together a basic template to help you track how much energy your equipment uses. If you’d like to conduct an energy assessment, I’ve written an overview for you here.
Calculation Template – Assessing Energy Consumption & Savings
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As you may know, I might be the only consultant worldwide specializing in optimizing experimental strategies.
To help you benefit from that expertise, here’s a template that can help you organize and quantify your savings.
Sheet Template – Tracing Savings In Experiments
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After hearing from a scientist who almost gave up before finding others to join her — just by sending a single email to her institute’s mailing list — I wrote a short template for you too.
Email Template – Outreach To Find Your Dream Team Beyond Your Lab
Energy and Electricity
Tools such as the Fume Hood Energy Modeler (LBL / Berkeley), allow you to estimate the energy your fume hoods.
The I2SL Benchmark Tool, which goes a step further, enabling you to track not only energy impacts but also the embodied carbon of your lab building.
For data analysis, packages for Python such as CodeCarbon or carbontracker and R (carbonr) exist. Moreover, the Green Algorithms website offers a tool that lets you run an estimation in just a few seconds.
Method optimization
You’d be surprised how much money — sometimes millions — companies invest in developing software and tools that they openly share but rarely promote.
I’ve included two examples so you can get a sense of what I mean:
For example, if you search for alternative animal models useful tool is EcoDrugPlus.
And if your work with HPLC, Restek provides the Pro EZLC Method Translator and Waters a hub of different tools to analyze and “translate” your methodology.
Green Chemistry
Finding greener solvents is a big topic, There’s a plethora of tools such as the DOZN tool, the ACS GCI Solvent Tool, or AI4Green, all of which help you find alternative solvents – you must check them out!
ACS has a list of several tools for solvent, reactions and reaction processes and this publication discusses others based on their functioning principle.
Secondary Market
Here, you can find or sell used instruments, as well as items that are past their official expiration date.
The idea is to prevent them from ending up in landfills while giving those with smaller budgets the opportunity to purchase high-performance instruments.
Networks & Knowledge Hubs
Of course, you should know where you can learn more:
Sustainability Certifications
Programs like the My Green Lab Certification or LEAF provide clear structures, guidance, and software to help you make your lab greener. Lately, GreenDiSC is about to establish a program for Bioinformatics.
Of note, the My Green Lab Certification is also available for industry labs and soon also tailored to clinical labs!
Finally
Of course, there are several other great tools and resources that simply didn’t quite fit the scope of the article here – and probably many I don’t know of. Therefore, use your network and google!
However, please take these tools with a grain of salt. All of them rely on a set of assumptions and approximations.
