Sustainable Labs programme reaches new milestone
The Sustainable Labs programme has reached an important milestone, with 50 labs from 11 different schools and four faculties now signed up to the LEAF framework for implementing sustainability initiatives.
Newly certified labs included the first labs within the School of Medicine and the School of Chemical and Process Engineering (SCaPE) to achieve LEAF certification.
The Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework
The Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF) is a certification standard developed by University College London (UCL). It is designed to help researchers, staff, and students enhance the sustainability and efficiency of their labs, which by nature are heavier users of energy and resources.
The scheme encourages the adoption of a variety of sustainable practices such as reducing the use of plastics, water, energy, and other resources. Labs are awarded bronze, silver or gold certifications based on the extent of their implementation of these sustainable actions. The measures have been shown to not only reduce environmental impact and greenhouse gas emissions, but also to offer cost savings for participating labs.
Supporting sustainability in labs as part of our Climate Plan
Supporting our community to improve laboratory sustainability is a key aim of the Sustainable Labs programme, in line with the University’s Climate Plan and target to deliver net zero emissions by 2030.
Lab sustainability is also an increasingly important criteria for external funding bodies such as the Wellcome Trust, who have set out guidelines including a requirement to achieve green labs certification - such as LEAF - by the end of 2025.
The expansion of the Sustainable Labs programme, supported by Climate Plan funding, included the development of a Sustainable Labs Resource Hub and a Sustainable Labs roadshow at the start of 2024. The roadshow directly contributed to raising awareness of the LEAF programme with 11 labs signing up or submitting applications for accreditation, and a 210% increase in site visits.
A new LEAF logo and certificates were created to celebrate the achievements and have been presented to labs over the last few weeks.
Programme Officer Laura Wilkinson said “We’re delighted to see more and more labs joining our Sustainable Labs programme and getting recognition for their sustainability efforts through the LEAF framework. Labs typically use between 3 - 10 times more energy than other University spaces as well as more resources, so LEAF is a great way to make a big contribution to our climate goals as well as all the other benefits of adopting sustainable practices”.
New LEAF accreditations
The Chemistry Teaching Labs were the first teaching labs at the University to be awarded Gold LEAF accreditation. Teaching Laboratory Technician Kimberley Holmes says:
"We are very proud that our laboratory has been awarded the Gold LEAF certification. We’re happy that our teaching activities are happening in the most sustainable way possible and we look forward to making more changes in the future. Many of the changes we implemented to achieve the Gold LEAF award have also saved us money. Our undergraduates have embraced the changes and some post graduate demonstrators have taken on some of our changes and applied them to their own research laboratories."
Dr Dan Baker, Experimental Officer for Soft Matter Physics (SMP), who recently achieved Silver accreditation, added:
"A welcome side effect of the LEAF accreditation process was that, in making processes more sustainable, we also made the labs a more inviting environment to work in and experiments easier to perform."
Labs that received LEAF accreditation over the past 12 months include:
Gold:
- Chemistry Teaching labs (School of Chemistry)
- Elton Zeqiraj Lab (Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology)
- Food Science and Nutrition Teaching Labs
Silver:
- Soft Matter Physics (School of Physics and Astronomy)
- CAPE Analytical Facilities (School of Chemical and Process Engineering)
Bronze:
- Tissue Culture 3 (Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine, School of Medicine)
- Davies Lab (School of Biology)
- Dixon Lab (School of Biology)
- Plant Nematology Group (School of Biology)
- Engineering Teaching Lab (School of Chemical and Process Engineering)
- MULTIForm Facility G.03.a (School of Chemical and Process Engineering)
- Atmospheric Labs B62 (School of Chemistry)
- Beales Lab 3.14 (School of Chemistry)
- Chem Lab 1.33 (School of Chemistry)
- Meldrum Kim Lab (School of Chemistry)
- Menzel Chamberlain Lab (School of Chemistry)
- Leeds Institute of Medical Research and Leeds Institutes of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine at St. James Teaching Hospital (School of Medicine)
- Radford/Brockwell/Calabrese Lab (School of Molecular and Cellular Biology)
- MNP / BioNano (School of Physics and Astronomy)
The full list of labs who have achieved LEAF certification can be found on our Sustainable Labs web pages, along with information on how you can join the programme and access the Sustainable Labs Resource Hub.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
We use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework to guide our activity. Our sustainable labs work is linked to the following SDGs:
- Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy
- Goal 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure
- Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production
Find out more about our impact on the SDGs.