Saving energy in the lab: this is how you do it

In September 2022, Leiden University of Applied Sciences won the Sustainable Lab Challenge during the World of Technology & Science with their sustainable initiatives. In recent years, they have realized a large number of projects in the fifteen labs at the Bio Science Park to save energy. Jurriaan Beckers, head of chemistry laboratories at Leiden University of Applied Sciences, explains how they approached this.

A sustainable view

Jurriaan explains that the challenge was a good reason to put the savings achieved on paper, but that the University had wanted to profile itself as a sustainable school for some time. That is why the University started following the environmental standard ISO 14001 in 2015. “In order to meet the objectives of this standard, we first started with sustainable steps from a facility perspective. For example, we changed the lighting to LED lamps throughout the entire University and installed water-saving toilets.”

An important first step is to put sustainability on the agenda. Furthermore, according to Jurriaan, it is also useful to walk through the lab with a sustainable view. “As a lab user, you are always busy with a certain core task. But sometimes you walk through the lab and pay attention to safety. Then you suddenly see an unsafe situation that you had not noticed during your daily activities. Just as you walk through the lab with such a safety view, you can also look at your work environment with a sustainability view.”

“Just as you walk through the lab with a safety lens, you can also look at your work environment with a sustainability lens.”

Consciousness and insight

Jurriaan says that by putting on a 'sustainable lens', unexpected things can be noticed at once. For example, at Hogeschool Leiden there were a lot of boilers in the labs. "There were sometimes two or three boilers per lab. These were on 365 days a year and kept the water at 60 degrees continuously, even during the holidays. We removed them and replaced some with more efficient flow-through boilers."

In addition to awareness, insight into your consumption is also very important: “For twenty euros you can buy an energy meter for the equipment. Especially if you have old equipment, you can first measure how much energy they consume and from there see where you can save”

Smart research

There is also a less obvious way to save energy. Jurriaan explains: “Scaling down is an important aspect of sustainability. For example, you can ask yourself how many measurements are really needed for a particular study. With modern lab equipment, you can easily take and process a hundred samples, but sometimes it is wiser to start with five. That saves on storage and the chemicals used.”

In addition, you can also look more consciously at sustainability when choosing partners and suppliers. “When tendering for chemicals and laboratory consumables, we ask a number of sustainability questions as standard. These can be small solutions, such as packaging material and transport. But if you ask a number of questions as standard for every tender, it will also be on the agenda of suppliers and producers.”

Carrying capacity

Once sustainability is on the agenda, it is important to keep it there. According to Jurriaan, it is therefore important to enthuse the right people. “To keep sustainability alive within the organization, you need certain people who are prepared to take extra steps. You do not have to get all employees on board, but if you start with small sustainability projects, you will automatically find the people who want to commit to this.”

Despite all the savings achieved, there are still plans to continue to make things more sustainable in the future. “We definitely want to purchase more energy-efficient fume hoods when our current hoods need replacing. Personally, I would also like to look at alternatives for single-use plastics to reduce plastic consumption.”

Want to know more? In this article you can read all about the results of the Sustainable Lab Challenge and find more useful tips. You can also participate for free in the Sustainability Workshop during the LabNL fair. You can register for the fair and the workshop via this link.