Bronze Sustainability Certificate for GCU bio research labs

Glasgow Caledonian University's bio research labs have been awarded a Bronze Sustainability Certificate after staff and students launched a project to reduce science waste.

Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences lecturers and sustainability champions Dr Gillian Hunter and Dr Yvonne Dempsie, and the University's Sustainability Officer Paulo Cruz are behind the project to find new sustainable ways to cut science waste in their research and teaching labs.

The project was among five others from the School of Health and Life Sciences who won up to £5,000 to pilot new projects that bring to life the University's Strategy for Learning 2030 (SfL,2030) and its transformative education vision.

The £4,617 awarded for the science waste project was to help align the teaching and research labs with the UCL LEAF (Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework) system, which provides calculators that enable monitoring of sustainability within labs and identify areas for improvement.

Now, as a result of a summer project by Biological and Biomedical Sciences’ students Amy Campbell, Stefan Corradini and Connor Cusack-MacLean, four research labs have been awarded a LEAF Initiative Bronze Sustainability Certificate.

Paulo said: “LEAF provides a route map to enhance the sustainability of our labs by drawing on good practice from across the sector and handy to use tools and calculators. Thanks to LEAF and the work Amy, Stefan and Connor have done, the University lab groups are already making significant changes to introduce measures that will help reduce energy consumption, for example increasing the temperature our ultra-low freezers operate (to store samples) from -80C to -70C.

“We are also looking at higher value treatment options for used lab consumables - mainly plastics that get processed into a refuse derived fuel by the University’s waste contractor.

“I am hopeful that as more GCU labs participate in LEAF and the current ones progress through to Silver and Gold that we will identify many more opportunities for reducing environmental impacts from our labs.”

Dr Dempsie said: “We are delighted that our bio research laboratories have achieved a bronze LEAF certificate. This was only possible through the hard work of Amy, Connor and Stefan. We look forward to developing further sustainability initiatives within the department and sharing best practice through the GCU sustainability forum.”

Dr Hunter added: “The bio team is committed to continuing our sustainability improvements and the work carried out by the students this summer will be disseminated to all of our students, so that they are aware of how their laboratory practice impacts on the environment.

“At the start of the new term, we will be setting up a ‘Green Lab’ group with student reps from all year groups and the intention of this group will be to maintain the standards of the Bronze Sustainability Certificate, achieve the Bronze award in our teaching labs, and to then work towards the Silver and Gold, in all our laboratories.”