Environmental sustainability in research
The environmental sustainability of the research we do is a critical part of a healthy research culture. The consequences of climate and nature crises are becoming increasingly evident. Research activities often involve the use of significant resources, including energy, water, and materials which can contribute to the problem. For example, laboratories consume 3-10 times more energy and four times more water than equivalent office spaces. Life scientists alone contribute to 2% (5.5 million tons) of global plastic waste each year. Academics also require increasingly large servers and computer power to carry out their research, and many use air travel frequently.
The University of Manchester is committed to prioritising environmental sustainability for example through our Environmental Sustainability Strategy 2023-2028 and the embedding of academic leads for sustainability across all three faculties. However, all research institutions and researchers must take responsibility to review and ‘green’ their operations wherever possible. This involves making better use of available resources, actively reducing consumption and waste, and, where relevant, adopting new methods or products after carefully assessing their impact.
The Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF) is a higher education sector-wide framework that offers guidance and criteria to improve the sustainability and efficiency of research and teaching laboratory spaces. LEAF outlines criteria at three levels (bronze, silver, gold) that help laboratories to progressively meet these goals, and is applicable to wet labs and teaching spaces. More than a third of University wet labs hold a LEAF award and around 200 lab members have already attended the LEAF002 training workshop for bronze and silver level. The University is aiming for 100% of wet laboratories to achieve a Bronze LEAF award by August 2025, 25% of laboratories to achieve a Silver LEAF award, and for all Principal Investigators (PIs) of wet labs to have a LEAF champion representing their lab.
Several labs have embedded sustainability in their operations across all three faculties. For example, amongst the first gold LEAF awards were the A3040 Lab in Michael Smith, the Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub in the Henry Royce Institute, and the University of Manchester’s Geography Laboratories.
Geography Laboratory Technician, Jon Yarwood said: “As a Geography lab, where much of our work is environmental study, we feel it’s important to lead by example in respect of efficiency and environmental impact. Through the LEAF audit we’ve worked through our Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to see where we can improve our reduction, reuse and recycling of chemicals and equipment. In turn we’ve found where we can improve efficiency of processes.”
Isobel Taylor-Hearn, a PhD student in FBMH who is a Gold LEAF champion, LEAF trainer and auditor, has written a blog showcasing six top tips to promote sustainability in labs. She notes that one of the biggest challenges in promoting sustainability is overcoming ingrained wasteful practices and changing mindsets. In the lab, people often perform actions on autopilot without considering the environmental consequences. To combat this, simple prompts and reminders were introduced to make lab members more mindful of their actions, including posters to question common practices such as whether single-use tubes could be replaced with reusable glass bottles, if weighing boats could be reused, or whether single-use stripettes could be substituted with measuring cylinders. By increasing awareness and mindfulness, Isobel believes there’s been a positive shift in the way lab members carry out experiments, leading to reduced waste and resource consumption.
To help with this, the University has produced the 6R guide for labs, to support staff to reduce plastic waste in the lab and on campus, the Easy Eco for all in Manchester, and the Code of Practice on sustainability for Professional Services staff.
The University recently became a signatory to the new Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice, hosted by Wellcome on behalf of the sector.
This voluntary environmental sustainability concordat, co-developed by the UK research and innovation sector, represents a shared ambition for the UK to continue delivering cutting-edge research, but in a more environmentally responsible and sustainable way. By signing the Concordat, the University is signalling its commitment to recognise the need to change how we conduct research and innovation, and to take shared action now and in the future to reduce and eliminate negative environmental impacts and emissions.
Head of Environmental Sustainability, Julia Durkan is among those leading on the University’s implementation of the Concordat. Julia said: “The University of Manchester is proud to be at the forefront of addressing global sustainability challenges through our world-leading research, but we also recognise that how we conduct our research matters. Signing the concordat reflects our commitment to embedding sustainability into every aspect of our research practices, strengthening our ambition to lead by example in environmental sustainability. We aim to inspire a culture of sustainability in research, empowering researchers to play a vital role in tackling the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.”
Maggy Fostier, who is also leading on implementation, added: “According to our LEAF champions, being sustainable in the lab has many co-benefits for research and researchers: it leads to an increased efficiency through an improved organisation and a review of procedures to avoid unnecessary experiments, it generates financial savings by reducing consumption, and it requires better communication which helps with social cohesion among people sharing the lab space.
“As an academic community, we now need to come together to innovate and undertake cultural changes; we need to share our equipment better, collaborate with suppliers to set a circular economy around labs supplies, develop new ways to collaborate and exchange, while reducing air travel and sharing negative results to avoid unnecessary experiments.”