Guidance for lab-based researchers
Sustainable considerations if your research is conducted mainly in or around a laboratory.
If you're a lab-based researcher, your work mainly takes place in a laboratory and focuses on collecting and analysing quantitative data. Most of your time is spent planning, conducting experiments, and analysing results. In the early stages, you may spend a lot of time on desk-based tasks, like defining your research question, reviewing existing studies, and designing data collection methods. Later, analysing the data and writing up your findings also requires significant desk work.
At a glance
Energy use in buildings
Water use
Equipment energy use
Waste production
Travel & transport
Experiment planning
Equipment manufacturing & delivery
Catering at events
Sustainable considerations
Click on the drop-down menu below to find out more about sustainable considerations for your lab-based research.
Consider the energy required for lighting, heating, and air-conditioning in your building. Also consider the source of this energy, such as whether your building uses gas, oil or electricity for heating, and how this electricity is generated. This may vary significantly depending on the kind of laboratory you work in and the conditions required for conducting your experiments, such as ventilation systems, and thermal or humidity control.
Be mindful of water consumption in the building you work in, generated from office kitchens, toilets, and hand-washing (as is the case for desk-based researchers). However, if you sterilise lab equipment or use water purification methods that waste more water than they produce, your research will have a higher environmental impact due to increased water use.
The energy used in your research will go beyond computers and data storage. Some of your equipment, like cold storage, fume cupboards, and biosafety cabinets, may consume a lot of energy, adding to the overall energy impact of your research.
Waste from your research includes materials used during experiments and by-products that aren't stored for future use.
This can include paper waste (documents, packaging), plastics (swabs, pipettes, petri dishes), glass (beakers, ampoules), and chemicals. Some research may also produce clinical, infectious, or hazardous waste requiring special handling. Additionally, equipment or furniture that is broken or no longer needed also contributes to waste.
The energy use, resources, and emissions from your experiment depend on how it's planned. Factors include whether you can reuse existing models or systems, input data directly during the experiment instead of manually afterward, or reduce on-site data monitoring by using algorithms for statistical checks.
Consider the energy-use, resource-use and emissions associated with manufacturing and delivering the equipment you need for research tasks.
Assess the energy use and emissions from work-related travel, including to attend meetings and conferences, or for engaging with your students or colleagues. The type of transport used for this travel and the journey length will determine the significance of its contribution to the overall environmental impact of your research.
Consider the resource use, energy consumption, emissions, waste, and indirect water use associated with food at research events you host or attend. If you're not the organiser, it may be challenging to control these factors, and key hospitality decisions might be beyond your influence.
Implementing sustainable research practices
Meet our two lab-based researchers, Tapiwa and Arvind, and discover how their research choices affect the environment, along with the key considerations they can adopt to make their research practices more sustainable.
