The UAB Green Labs Program bested more than 40 universities and colleges from around the globe to win the overall academic award in the annual Freezer Challenge hosted by My Green Lab and the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL). More than 30 UAB labs competed and UAB conserved 872 kWh/day (318,280 kWh), equivalent to roughly the annual energy usage of 30 homes.
“We are extremely proud of our program and our labs,” said Nick Ciancio, sustainability program coordinator. “UAB is well-known for being a world-renowned research institution; winning the freezer challenge proves that UAB is a global leader in lab sustainability as well.”
According to My Green Lab, the competition “encourages scientists across the government, academic, biopharma, and clinical sectors to implement a variety of best practices related to cold storage management in their own labs.” This year’s competition saw a combined global energy savings of 4.3 million kWh/year, up from 3.2 million kWh/year in 2020; the equivalent to reducing carbon emissions by 3,000 metric tons per year.
Ciancio and Emily Colpack, a UAB Sustainability intern, attended the I2SL conference in Atlanta to receive the award. The UAB Green Labs Program and the Van Der Pol lab were also featured in the journal Nature. The journal is widely respected in the science and research community.
The Freezer Challenge is a six-month process, with points awarded for sustainable actions that promote energy efficiency, sample accessibility, and sample integrity. Winners are determined considering both points earned and energy saved. The UAB Van Der Pol Lab was one of 12 labs awarded an individual prize.
Laboratories can consume up to five times more energy and water than offices spaces and produce large amounts of waste — for example, Biomedical Research Building II costs UAB around $9 per square foot, about $4 million a year, compared to the Education and Engineering Complex, which costs just about $2.94 per square foot. The Green Labs program is a partnership between UAB Sustainability and Environmental Health & Safety to help research labs use simple measures to lessen energy use, reduce waste and lower costs.
Any lab on campus can email greenlabs@uab.edu to be a part of the program. Participants begin by completing an initial survey from My Green Lab, designed by a California-based nonprofit that includes academic institutions, government labs, biopharmaceutical companies and other of the scientific and clinical community’s largest corporations among its lab sustainability clients. Labs have six months to implement changes recommended by UAB Sustainability to earn a Green Lab certification.