A new open-access book, The Sustainability of Science, gathers practical guidance for reducing the environmental impact of laboratory and digital research. But as sustainable science moves toward shared standards, public supporting infrastructure, and expectations from science funders, researchers will need more than best-practice advice alone.
It’s been over twenty years since the first programs to help research laboratories reduce their environmental footprint were introduced. In that time, we’ve learned a few things. It turned out that going green isn’t solely within the purview of institutional leadership. The people working in labs can also be influential agents of change. Plastic waste disposal isn’t the biggest sustainability problem, even in life science. Most of plastic’s carbon footprint occurs during manufacturing before it is ever handled by a scientist. The irreproducibility crisis doesn’t just slow scientific progress. It also magnifies the environmental impacts of lab work. Standardizing measurement of the environmental impacts of conducting science is no small task. Sustainability is not a single challenge but a systems problem. Improvements require collaboration with non-scientists supporting lab operations. Over the past two decades, these insights have helped shape many of today’s best practices.
Fortunately, much of the green labs movement’s accumulated experience has now been collected in an open-access book. In “The Sustainability of Science: How Science Impacts the Environment, and What Can Be Done”, a group of leading experts and pioneers share practical guidance, open resources, and frank assessments of the gaps that still prevent science from becoming truly sustainable. The Royal Society of Chemistry has also made the chapters open access, making it easier for researchers, lab managers, and sustainability teams to use and share.
Far beyond creating awareness, the authors also provide perspectives on where and how we can make a difference and reshape our scientific research and adapt to a sustainable future.
- Ben Feringa, Nobel Laureate Organic Chemist
It’s an enjoyable read. Nobel laureate synthetic organic chemist Professor Ben Feringa provides an optimistic yet reflective foreword. Feringa notes that “far beyond creating awareness, the authors also provide perspectives on where and how we can make a difference and reshape our scientific research and adapt to a sustainable future." You can hear personality and passion in each chapter covering topics like plastics in scientific research, scientific equipment sustainability, and research quality & reproducibility. Whether you’ve just started thinking about green lab work, or you’re a longtime champion for eco-friendly research, you’ll find dependable information in this book.
Overall, the book advocates a cultural shift: environmental stewardship should become an integral component of scientific excellence. And achieving that shift will require infrastructure, governance, education, procurement practices, and incentives that work together.
Navigating a sustainability paradox in research labs
Having a strong playbook is an advantage for winning teams, but what if your team is chasing a goal and hits a wall? It’s a struggle to fund complex lab sustainability overhauls. The criteria and standards to meet a specific goal may not be accessible. It can be unclear whether a lab supply manufacturer's certification comprehensively reflects global operations. Greener chemistry substitutes are not available for every application. Biosafety is non-negotiable. Increasingly higher volumes of datasets require storage. Using AI improves research productivity, but increases carbon footprints. Scientists are not expected to slow down research work. Plans to improve environmental stewardship are more likely to succeed when uncertainty is minimized. Adapting laboratory operations requires more than a static playbook.
Science needs to innovate and scale sustainability in an evolving landscape. The book’s editor, Martin Farley, is also helping to shape one of the field’s next major infrastructure efforts. He is the Associate Director of Environmental Sustainability at the United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI), the preeminent science funder in the U.K.. It can be thought of as the equivalent to the National Institutes of Health in the U.S.A.. The United Kingdom was the first public research powerhouse to set a net-zero carbon target. The UKRI and many science funders across Europe recognize that laboratory and digital research is a high-impact area for energy use and carbon emissions. Unfortunately, the lack of publicly available criteria and knowledge resources has been an ongoing challenge to implementing best practices, setting standards and preventing commercial greenwashing.
an open platform for greening publicly funded research labs
To provide guidance and infrastructure, UKRI is collaborating with a group of major European science funders and other stakeholders to develop SPARKHub (short for Sustainable Practice and Research Knowledge). SPARKHub is an open-access platform for greening research which will be launched later this year after a pilot was recently completed. It’s intended for anyone working in publicly supported research and covers a broad range of activities including but not limited to laboratory research, engineering, fieldwork, the arts, digital research, chemistry, and much more. The long-term goal is to deliver transparent, open-access standards and certifications. It will also include a broad set of resources for organizations, including purchasing guides, user training and calculators. Essentially, research institutions and researchers will be provided with free information needed to improve sustainability.
What Scientists Can Do Now
Worldwide, very few science funders require environmental impact reporting today; however, researchers in Europe and their international collaborators may want to follow SPARKHub’s development now. It’s more efficient to plan ahead than to get a late start. Most scientists have direct influence over experimental design and the operation of lab equipment. A strong playbook matters, but sustainable science will not scale through advice alone. Many barriers remain outside the control of individual labs: sustainability upgrades can be difficult to fund, certification criteria are not always transparent, supplier claims can be hard to compare, and emerging tools such as AI are adding new questions about the digital footprint of research. If the book captures what the green labs movement has learned, SPARKHub points toward what the movement may need next: open guidance, transparent standards, and shared infrastructure.
References:
The Sustainability of Science: How Science Impacts the Environment, and What Can Be Done. Royal Society of Chemistry, 2026. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/9781837672202
A new open-access book on sustainable science offers practical guidance for greener labs, while the free SPARKHub platform points toward shared standards and infrastructure for publicly funded research.