The Freezer Challenge is an annual, free, virtual competition — organized by My Green Lab in partnership with the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) — that rewards labs for optimizing cold-storage equipment: defrosting and decluttering freezers, updating sample inventories, and tightening temperature setpoints. It runs each year from January through June and is open to any laboratory worldwide, with no cost to enter.
What Is the International Laboratory Freezer Challenge?
The Freezer Challenge (also called the International Freezer Challenge, or the My Green Lab Freezer Challenge) is a structured, points-based program that gets research teams to treat their ultra-low-temperature (ULT, -80°C) and other cold-storage units as managed assets rather than a “set it and forget it” appliance. Labs sign up, form a small team, work through a set of recommended optimization actions over the competition window, and log what they did on a shared scoresheet. My Green Lab coordinates the challenge; I2SL is the co-organizing partner, and the program has drawn support from corporate sponsors including large biopharma and instrument manufacturers.
It sits alongside My Green Lab certification and the LEAF (Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework) program as one of the sector’s main sustainability initiatives, but it is narrower and more tactical: where certification assesses a whole lab’s practices, the Freezer Challenge focuses specifically on cold-storage management as a single, high-leverage intervention.
Why Cold Storage Is the Target
ULT freezers are among the most energy-intensive pieces of equipment a typical research lab runs continuously — a single -80°C unit can draw as much electricity per year as several households, and many labs operate multiple units that are overfilled, poorly organized, or older than their rated efficient lifespan. Poor freezer management also creates real operational risk: samples that can’t be located quickly during a door-open event, undocumented inventories that make it impossible to know what a freezer actually contains, and units running colder than necessary for the samples stored inside. The best-practice response — a named unit owner, a digital inventory, a written rack map, a defrost/clean schedule, and a setpoint review (most sample types are stable at -70°C rather than the traditional -80°C default) — is exactly what the Freezer Challenge scoresheet asks labs to implement and document.
How to Enter the Freezer Challenge
- Sign up on My Green Lab’s Freezer Challenge page when registration opens for the current cycle (the competition runs January through June annually; registration for the next cycle typically opens ahead of that window).
- Assemble a team — most participating labs designate a small group (often the freezer/inventory owner plus a couple of lab members) rather than relying on one person.
- Work through the recommended actions: defrosting and cleaning units, decommissioning or consolidating underused freezers, digitizing or updating the sample inventory, building a rack map for indexed retrieval, and reviewing whether each unit’s setpoint can be safely raised.
- Record progress on the scoresheet as actions are completed — this is what generates the lab’s competition score and, in aggregate across all participants, the program’s reported energy-savings totals.
- Awards are given in both lab-level and organization-level categories. Top organization winners are recognized at the I2SL Annual Conference; top individual lab winners are celebrated at a virtual awards ceremony each fall.
Because the challenge runs on a fixed annual window, a lab that misses the current cycle can still use the same checklist as an internal freezer-management project and simply hold the results for the next sign-up period.
What the Challenge Has Delivered
My Green Lab reports cumulative energy savings of roughly 108 million kWh across Freezer Challenge participants since the program began in 2017, with 2025 alone contributing an estimated 31.6 million kWh — a scale that reflects the program now engaging thousands of labs across many countries each cycle. Those figures come directly from My Green Lab’s own program reporting; treat any more granular per-cycle participation numbers you see cited elsewhere (specific lab or country counts for a single year) as self-reported by the organizers and worth checking against the current-year page before quoting in a grant report or sustainability disclosure.
Freezer Challenge vs. My Green Lab / LEAF Certification
These are related but distinct programs, and labs sometimes conflate them:
- Freezer Challenge — a free, time-boxed, single-focus competition on cold-storage optimization; participation alone does not confer a certification.
- My Green Lab Certification — a broader, survey-plus-operational-data assessment of a whole lab’s sustainability practices, with Bronze-through-Green tiers.
- LEAF — a UK-originated, criteria-checklist framework covering the full range of lab operations, including a Gold-tier cold-storage criterion that overlaps with Freezer Challenge best practices.
A lab pursuing My Green Lab or LEAF certification will find that Freezer Challenge participation directly satisfies or strengthens the cold-storage criteria in either framework — it’s a practical, low-cost way to make progress toward certification while competing for recognition in its own right.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Freezer Challenge?
It is an annual, free, virtual competition run by My Green Lab and the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) that rewards labs for optimizing the energy use, organization, and safety of their cold-storage equipment (freezers and refrigerators).
Is the My Green Lab Freezer Challenge free to enter?
Yes. Registration and participation are free; the program is funded through My Green Lab, I2SL, and corporate sponsorship rather than entry fees.
When does the International Freezer Challenge run?
Annually from January through June, with organization winners recognized at the I2SL Annual Conference and lab winners celebrated at a virtual awards ceremony in the fall.
Does the Freezer Challenge require a certain type of freezer?
No. Any lab with cold-storage equipment — ULT (-80°C) freezers, -20°C freezers, or cold-room refrigeration — can participate; the scoresheet actions apply across unit types.
Does winning the Freezer Challenge count toward My Green Lab certification?
Freezer Challenge participation is a separate program from formal My Green Lab certification, but the actions it scores (inventory, setpoint review, defrost schedule) overlap directly with certification and LEAF Gold cold-storage criteria, so participating supports both goals at once.
Related CASRAI Resources
- -80°C Freezer Management — the operational checklist behind the Freezer Challenge scoresheet.
- Cold-Storage Energy (Research) — the energy-use concepts the challenge is built around.
- My Green Lab — the organization behind the challenge and its certification program.
- Pharma Cold Chain Logistics — temperature-band and excursion management for regulated cold chains.
- Temperature Excursion — how to respond when a cold-storage unit fails or drifts out of range.
- Laboratory Asset Management Software — tools for tracking freezer inventory and unit lifecycle.
