Dictionary domainTrack E
Sustainable research and laboratory operations
LEAF, My Green Lab, carbon footprint of research.
For implementers
Operational deployment checklist for Sustainable research and laboratory operations: prerequisites, five deploy steps, integration notes for Pure, Symplectic Elements, Worktribe, DSpace, and more, plus the pitfalls that recur in the field.
Terms in this domain
28 terms
Lab equipment lifecycle assessment
A structured environmental impact assessment of a laboratory instrument or equipment item across all life-cycle stages, from raw-material extraction and manufacture through use, maintenance, and end-of-life.
Carbon accounting (research)
The systematic measurement, calculation, and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions across research activities, applying standard methodologies and emission factors to produce auditable CO2-equivalent totals.
Scope 1 / 2 / 3 emissions (research org)
The categorisation of a research organisation's greenhouse-gas emissions following the GHG Protocol: scope 1 (direct on-site combustion), scope 2 (purchased electricity, heat, steam, cooling), and scope 3 (indirect emissions across the value chain, including procurement, commuting, travel, and waste).
Climate impact statement (in DMP)
A structured section in a data management plan or research proposal that estimates and discusses the environmental impact of planned research activities, including travel, computing, equipment, consumables, and data storage.
Climate-aware funding
Research funding policies and award practices that explicitly incorporate climate and environmental sustainability considerations into eligibility, proposal review, and reporting.
Open infrastructure energy efficiency
The energy and carbon performance of shared, community-governed scholarly infrastructure (open repositories, identifier services, preservation systems), considered as part of the sustainability profile of the open scholarship ecosystem.
Sustainable procurement (research)
The process of purchasing research goods and services with explicit consideration of environmental, social, and governance criteria across the full supply chain, in addition to price and performance.
5R Framework (lab sustainability)
A hierarchical decision framework applied to laboratory consumables and waste: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle, considered in that order of preference.
Hybrid conference
A scholarly meeting that simultaneously supports in-person and remote participation, with intentional design choices to give remote attendees substantive interactivity rather than passive viewing.
Virtual conference
A scholarly meeting held entirely online, with no physical venue or in-person attendance, using video-conferencing, virtual poster halls, and asynchronous discussion channels.
Conference travel emissions
The subset of academic travel emissions specifically attributable to attendance at conferences, workshops, and scholarly meetings.
Travel emissions (academic)
The greenhouse gas emissions arising from academic business travel, principally air travel for conferences, fieldwork, collaboration visits, and external examining.
Carbon-aware computing
The practice of scheduling, shifting, or routing computational workloads in response to real-time grid carbon intensity, so that flexible jobs run when and where electricity emissions are lowest.
Energy proportionality (computing)
The property of computing systems whose energy consumption scales linearly with workload, so that idle or lightly utilised systems draw correspondingly little power.
Green software engineering
The discipline of designing, building, and operating software with explicit attention to its energy and carbon impact, as defined by the Green Software Foundation.
Sustainable HPC
High-performance computing operations and procurement choices that minimise energy use, carbon emissions, water use, and hardware waste while delivering scientific compute capacity.
Compute carbon footprint
The greenhouse gas emissions attributable to the electricity consumed by computational research activities, including local workstations, on-premises HPC clusters, and cloud or commercial compute services.
Research carbon footprint
The total greenhouse gas emissions (expressed in CO2-equivalent) attributable to research activity, encompassing direct laboratory energy use, computing, procurement, travel, and end-of-life of research equipment.
Lab waste audit
A structured exercise in which a laboratory measures and categorises the volume, type, and disposal route of waste generated over a defined period to identify reduction, re-use, and recycling opportunities.
Single-use plastic alternatives
Materials and product designs that substitute for traditional single-use polymer consumables in research workflows, including bio-based polymers, autoclavable glassware, reduced-plastic packaging, and refill-and-wash systems.
Reusable consumables
Laboratory items historically used once and discarded that are redesigned, repurposed, or substituted with multi-use alternatives, including washable tip-box racks, autoclavable glass tubes, refillable spray bottles, and washable lab coats.
Plastic waste (research lab)
The single-use and multi-use polymer waste generated by laboratory research activities, including pipette tips, tubes, plates, gloves, packaging, and serological pipettes, much of which is contaminated and routed to incineration rather than recycling.
-80 degC freezer management
The set of operational practices applied to ultra-low temperature (ULT) freezers to minimise energy use, extend equipment life, and preserve sample integrity, including sample inventory control, temperature setpoint optimisation, and preventive maintenance.
Cold-storage energy (research)
The electrical energy consumed by research cold-storage equipment (-20 degC freezers, -80 degC ultra-low temperature freezers, liquid nitrogen Dewars, cold rooms) used to preserve biological, chemical, and reagent samples.
ULAB sample
An Unknown Long-Abandoned Biological sample, typically held in a freezer or cold-storage facility with no current owner, provenance record, or active research use, representing a major target for sustainability clean-out programmes.
Green Lab Certification
Any formal third-party assessment that verifies a laboratory meets defined sustainability criteria, most commonly issued by LEAF or My Green Lab.
My Green Lab
A US-based non-profit organisation and certification programme that assesses laboratory sustainability across behaviour, equipment, infrastructure, and culture, issuing tiered certifications used by pharmaceutical, biotech, and academic labs worldwide.
LEAF (Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework)
A standards-based assessment framework developed by University College London that scores wet and dry laboratories on energy, waste, water, procurement, and research-quality practices, awarding Bronze, Silver, or Gold accreditation.
