Of course, step by step and by implementing the necessary controls. But how do you document those changes?
Adding notes to your protocols is a highly useful but unfortunately often overlooked practice.
So, here is when and how to do it:
Today's Lesson: Note Taking in Protocols
How and why documenting change makes a difference
Number of the Day
After properly assessing the startup time of their fusion fluxers (sample preparation instruments), staff at AstraZeneca reported that the instruments could be shut off because the sample preparation time was longer than the instrument’s warm-up time. By sharing this insight, they prevented others from running the instruments overnight unnecessarily - saving more than $1541 in energy costs annually. But how can such insights best be shared?
1541
How to Add the Right Remarks
Since documentation takes time, let’s understand the many ways it matters.
First, it has a cascading effect because we generally pass on our protocols.
While the first generation identifies and documents the sustainable practices they can find, the next generation will adopt the protocol and carry it forward. Just think about how many generations protocols are passed on through. Moreover, even when new protocols are established, they are typically based on published literature - creating another opportunity to embed sustainable practices.
That means our notes automatically introduce others to sustainable practices and signal that a culture of sustainability exists.
Importantly, these notes are especially persuasive because they show that changes have already been tested and implemented by peers.
Personal Advantages
Second, documentation benefits you - especially when you revisit experiments after a long time or want to publish.
It will certainly feel unnecessary in the moment, but after just two weeks, all you remember is that there was something you wanted to remember.
I speak from experience... :)
This is a slightly modified graphic from a case study I published. Believe, taking notes early would have saved me a lot of time searching through my protocols. Similarly, if you write a report on your laboratory, or a research paper, having changes documented will help you a lot. Also, if you give presentations or create posters, you can include these notes to make an extra impression.
What I also personally consider important is that documentation encourages deeper engagement with protocols.
This especially helps young scientists understand workflows rather than simply follow instructions.
How to Do It
At first, I would advise including these notes within the original protocol rather than creating an additional document.
We want to give people the chance to decide at every step whether they want to follow the sustainable protocol or not.
Click to enlarge. This is an example of how these notes could look. Obviously, there is no need to color-code them or use a different layout. A simple “Note:” or “Sustainable Practice:” would work just as well.
Moreover, there is a psychological reason for this. If people see a separate sustainable protocol, they will automatically ask what the trade-off for the sustainability gains is (instead of seeing them as an alternative).
Now, what to include in these notes:
What exactly was changed
Optional: the broader principle behind the change
Under which circumstances this change is possible
What to look out for when implementing the change
At the beginning or end of the protocol, include whom to contact.
If you have quantified it, you can also refer to the savings that can be achieved
A Few Examples
Step 6: Cell collection for staining
Transfer the cell suspension into a sterile 50 mL tube.
Add 1 mL per ten thousand cells of staining buffer and gently mix by pipetting.
Incubate for 15 minutes on ice.
Centrifuge at 300 × g at 4°C for 5 minutes and remove supernatant.
Sustainable note: A 15 mL tube may be used if the total volume is ≤ 12 mL (saves 51% of plastic waste). Handling works similarly well, resuspension of pellet as well. Tested for primary and Jurkat cells.
Even the most innocuous ideas are worth sharing. For example, using a P1000 tip instead of a serological pipette can significantly reduce plastic waste.
Step 12: Analysis
Transfer the cell suspension into a 5 mL analysis vial.
Analyze via flow cytometry within 20 minutes.
Sustainable Practice: If you are comfortable with reusing materials, choose glass vials and follow the washing procedure outlined in Appendix #2. If you choose plastic vials instead, make sure to use polypropylene tubes, as they are less adhesive than polyethylene tubes (DOI:10.1002/eji.201646632) These can be found in the drawer to the left of the Attune.
Step 4: Cell Stimulation
Add 100 µL RPMI medium to each well.
Add 10 µL stimulation reagent to the designated wells.
Add 10 µL vehicle control to control wells.
Mix gently by pipetting.
Sustainable Practice: When pipetting the same sterile reagent into multiple wells, the same pipette tip may be reused to reduce plastic consumption. For wells containing the same cell type and sample, the same tip can also be reused if you aliquoted stimulation agents or vehicle controls for each sample. To minimize the risk of carryover, pipette from the lowest to the highest concentration and avoid touching the liquid already present in the wells by dispensing against the plate wall. (Preparing aliquots is generally worthwhile when processing more than 15 samples of the same type.)
But What If?
When there is something you cannot explain in 1–3 lines, there are two alternatives.
On the one hand, consider writing a short paragraph that is clearly distinct from the main protocol.
For instance, if you want to mention that people can use a different pipetting order or if you want to nudge them toward choosing different materials, this can be a good idea.
Click to enlarge. On the left, a single paragraph provides additional information. However, if you start using electronic notes, consider using “Accordions” or collapsible “Headers” that can be expanded when needed. Just make sure that your sustainability notes have their own heading.
If the changes are so extensive that they are as long as the original protocol, creating a separate document can make sense:
However, make sure that the original protocol includes a clearly visible note indicating where a sustainable alternative exists.
Also, include in both versions a short mention of what the sustainable protocol can save, as well as what a minor trade-off might be.
For example, simply adding that people need to spend five more minutes preparing for the sustainable protocol will resolve the issue we discussed previously: people tend to ask, if something is more sustainable, what the trade-off will be.
Applying the Knowledge
I would advise starting to draft your notes before your experiment.
When you try to be explicit about what you want to change, you will be better able to prepare and identify challenges that might otherwise go unnoticed.
As you can guess, you should finalize your notes directly after your experiment - and I do mean directly afterwards.
This is the harsh truth of the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, developed by a German psychologist in the late 19th century to describe how newly learned information fades from memory. However, take it with a large grain of salt - these data are based largely on self-experiments using meaningless syllables. Still, Ebbinghaus put into numbers what we all experience: forgetting happens surprisingly rapidly, yet slows over time.
This will also ensure that you capture all the nuances you identified during your work.
Finally, the goal is to be concise but understandable. You want to be brief because that makes change appear easy.
However, especially if you use a bullet-point style, it can quickly happen that you are not understandable to someone else.
The issue is that you know the protocol and your reasoning, but the other person might not.
Therefore, if nobody else can read through it, ask AI to suggest ways to make your wording foolproof - it is quite good at that.
How We Feel Today
References
Alves, J., et al., 2020. A case report: insights into reducing plastic waste in a microbiology laboratory. Access Microbiology, 3(3), 000173. doi:10.1099/acmi.0.000173.
Penndorf, P., et al., 2024. Reducing plastic waste in scientific protocols by 65% — practical steps for sustainable research. FEBS Letters, 598, 1331–1334. doi:10.1002/1873-3468.14909.
Mazzali, D., et al., 2025. Sustainable and surfactant-free synthesis of negatively charged acrylamide nanogels for biomedical applications. Macromolecules, 58(3), pp. 1206–1213. doi:10.1021/acs.macromol.4c02128.
Cossarizza, A., et al., 2017. Guidelines for the use of flow cytometry and cell sorting in immunological studies. European Journal of Immunology, 47(10), 1584–1797. doi:10.1002/eji.201646632.
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