Researching sustainably

As signatories of the Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice, we recognise the need to continually improve how we conduct research and innovation and agree to work collectively with the sector to ensure the future design and practice of our cutting-edge research and innovation is environmentally responsible and sustainable. Our letter of commitment was signed by Interim Vice Chancellor Professor Hai-Sui Yu in 2024.

Business travel is a significant sustainability challenge for interdisciplinary research with global partners. We are currently reviewing our travel policies and a key principle of our Climate Plan and we have set a target to maintain business travel and commuting emissions at 50% of their 2018/19 baseline level.

Practical research in laboratories or workshops can be particularly resource intensive. We work closely with laboratory-based colleagues to identify key challenge areas and share learning and good practice through our Sustainable Labs programme. We use several accreditation models to understand and improve laboratory and workshop efficiency and sustainability, including the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF), GreenDiSC, and SPARKhub.

As places of innovation and discovery, our outstanding laboratory facilities allow research to thrive. However, laboratory activity can consume 3-10 times more energy per square meter than typical academic spaces and can produce large amounts of waste. There’s a real need – and opportunity – to tackle this and reduce the negative environmental impacts of laboratories on campus and beyond. 

Our laboratories play a key role in embedding sustainability across the whole institution, as highlighted in our Net Zero Delivery Plan. Our Sustainable Labs programme aims to support staff and students to improve sustainability in labs, reducing waste, resource and energy use and embedding sustainable behaviours. 

Sustainable Labs Resource Hub

Our Sustainable Labs Resource Hub is hosted on the Staff Intranet and is available to all staff and postgraduate researchers with a University of Leeds login. This comprehensive library of guidance covers a range of topics addressing sustainability in labs including waste, energy, water, and green chemistry. You can also find information about the various accreditation models we support. 

Staff can also join our  Sustainability Community on Teams where our Sustainable Labs Project Coordinator and lab-based colleagues share best practice, ask questions, and collaborate.

Accreditation

We support several accreditation models through the Sustainable Labs programme. 

LEAF, developed by University College London, is suitable for wet labs, such as microbiology, chemistry, and molecular biology labs. It is intended for use in any of our wet labs, including teaching, research, and NHS areas. LEAF contains criteria that lab users can implement around areas such as  waste & recycling, equipment management, procurement, and energy. The criteria are based on actions that have already been proven to work in other laboratories. A key feature of LEAF is that it allows you to quantify your impact in both financial and carbon savings using integrated calculators. Anyone who works in a laboratory can sign up and start working through the criteria; we recommend introducing LEAF at lab meetings so everyone in your group is informed and can contribute to implementation.  

SPARKhub was developed by UKRI as an open-access platform for greening research. On the website, you can find: 

• An extensive “Action Library” of practical steps (currently only for pilot participants) 
• Verified certification for groups (currently only for pilot participants)
• Training
• Guidance on sustainable procurement
• Calculators for estimating carbon and financial impacts
• Case studies, created by the research community 

As we are one of the pilot participants, staff at the University of Leeds can register to access all the accreditation modules. These include tailored actions for workshops, computational labs, mechanical engineering, and others. SPARKhub includes the criteria developed for computational labs by the University of Cambridge and Institute for Research Software known as GreenDiSC. 

For more information and instructions on how to sign up to these platforms, please visit the Sustainable Labs Resource Hub or email [email protected]