Making the lab more sustainable is a comprehensive challenge

How do you make the lab world, where the use of all kinds of consumables is high, more sustainable? Martin Zwinkels, director of Greiner Bio-One, has a number of ideas about this. During the World of Technology & Science 2022, from September 27 to 30, he will provide more insight into the initiatives his company has taken at the World of Laboratory. We spoke to him in the run-up to the WoTS.

By: Dimitri Reijerman

Zwinkels has been working for years to make the Dutch branch of the group as sustainable as possible. Particular attention has been paid to energy savings, he says: “Our business premises were completely renovated from top to bottom about ten years ago, using the knowledge of 2013. These adjustments are of course already partly outdated; You can call that the law of the braking advantage. For example, there was no LED lighting in the form of fluorescent lamps at the time. We do have that now. And we will soon be installing new solar panels on the roof in the second phase. Then we start overproducing. This way we can also shut down the last gas boiler, which runs together with a hybrid heat pump. At that moment we are truly energy neutral. “

Challenges

But it is a significant challenge to further increase sustainability, especially on Greiner Bio-One products, says the director: “We supply plastic products that are used in the laboratory. The use of plastic naturally places an additional responsibility on everyone's shoulders. I would like to add that our plastic materials never end up in the sea. Our materials are used for analyzes and can therefore potentially be contaminated. So you can't just throw that away. Everything is removed separately and completely burned.”

He continues: “In production you have to pay attention to which substances you use and which you do not use. You also have to think about recovering heat. Greiner Bio-One has been taking initiatives worldwide for years and has set international targets since 2016. In the Netherlands we are still ahead of this, because we started with sustainable entrepreneurship earlier.”

Moreover, the business community must view sustainability as a comprehensive concept, Zwinkels believes: “Sustainability is not just about green energy and the CO2 footprint; it is much broader than that and also concerns your products, your staff, your customers and the transporters. All parties must therefore be examined. We have therefore drawn up a 'Blue Plan', which sets out all our objectives in this area (www.gbo.com).”

Practical tips

To help his colleagues get started, Zwinkels has already come up with a number of tips. “Make the 'thinking about sustainability' process as short as possible,” he says. “If you are afraid that you are not working according to the very latest insights, you should not do it. Because you will be behind again the next month or year. So get started right away with the insights you have at that moment.”

“Making it more sustainable is also a mutual challenge. You cannot say to your supplier: you can solve it. For example, we sell pipette tips for pipetting robots. We deliver these loose in bags or, for convenience, stacked in boxes. The choice is still up to the customer. If you have a filling machine, you don't need the containers that are left over at all. So it is a double responsibility to reduce the amount of plastic, for example.”

“Another example: the biggest step you can make in making your processes more sustainable is to reduce your transports. Customers can realize enormous savings if, for example, they limit deliveries by truck to once every two or three weeks. To do this, you have to look carefully at your ordering process. Moreover, this allows you to lower prices, but in recent years you have seen a movement towards more frequent deliveries in tenders. So that can be done differently.”

Sustainable Lab Challenge

Greiner Bio-One is one of the initiators of the Sustainable Lab Challenge. With the Sustainable Lab Challenge we call on laboratories and suppliers to share their sustainable solutions, ideas and tools. With the collected stories, others learn how they can also take steps. Read all about this challenge here and also submit your own initiative.

Or participate in the Sustainability workshop in the Lab on Wednesday morning, September 28. During this workshop we will work on the theme together in an interactive way. You will receive tips and tricks to take the first steps towards sustainability in your own laboratory. Registering for a visit to the WoTS and this workshop is free and possible via this form.