New Assessment Criteria for Green Labs Certification Program

The UC Santa Cruz Sustainability Office's Green Labs program is proud to announce the implementation a new of a new scorecard for their certification program on campus, which promotes sustainability in our research labs. The Green Labs certification program rewards research labs that continuously practice sustainability in their work and encourage these practices throughout the year. In collaboration with other UC Green Labs programs throughout the UC system, a new detailed set of assessment criteria has been created in order to properly certify on-campus labs. After a walk-through and assessment based on this criteria, labs that have met sustainable standards are granted a Green Labs certification.

The new assessment has made drastic improvements to ensure proper certification, evaluating such criteria as proper waste disposal, water management, and sustainable lab protocol (i.e closing fume hoods when not in use, decreasing plug loads). The goals of the new certification process are not only to acknowledge current sustainable practices in labs, but also to suggest improvements and recommend new sustainable practices. By offering lab sustainability guidelines and feedback, the program directly supports campus sustainability goals related to waste, water and energy reductions.

 

Through the original assessment criteria used in the past couple of years, the Green Labs programs has certified two labs on campus. Their goals for the coming year are to outreach and certify as many labs as possible. Labs that become certified will soon be eligible for certification incentives (e.g. equipment upgrades) in the coming year. Using the new assessment process, the Green Labs team hopes to be efficient and effective when certifying labs and create a trend among campus to pursue environmentally sustainable practices.

If you work in a lab on campus and would like to speak with a Green Labs team member, please email Lily at lurmann [at] ucsc [dot] edu. To learn more about the program, please visit their website.