S-Lab Overview

An American architect, Don Prowler, has observed that "labs embody the spirit, culture, and economy of our age...what the cathedral was to the 14th century and the office building was to the 20th century, the laboratory is to the 21st century."

Sustainable development is an important aspect of 21st century economy and society, and increasingly reflected in scientific and technical research. It is also espoused by most lab operators. However, there is often a disconnect between these aspirations and activities and day to day laboratory life. Labs have a large environmental footprint, with especially high energy consumption (4-5 times greater than an office building per square metre in some cases). Despite this, there is often less activity to improve the sustainability of operational activities than in other buildings.

The S-Lab initiative aims to reduce this disconnect, and to stimulate the development of laboratories which have a smaller footprint and which inspire sustainability interest and action amongst users.  

A laboratory's environmental footprint includes elements common to all buildings, such as the impacts arising from construction materials, generation of construction and end-of-life-waste, transport movements of materials and users, and environmental control (heating and cooling) for occupant comfort. They also have more distinctive impacts, including:

• Use of many non-renewable materials;
• Use of highly contagious and/or hazardous materials, leading to occupational health and safety issues, and community concern about possible health impacts relating to exhaust gases;
• Creation of contaminated wastes;
• Very high water consumption, and creation of potentially hazardous effluents; and
• Very high energy consumption (often five times or more greater per square metre than offices).

The US Labs 21 initiative has shown that some of this footprint can be avoided, in part through a better understanding by users of the ways that their lab activities impact upon the environment. In some cases the impacts are ‘hard wired' in the design stage, and can only be addressed there. But in others they can be ameliorated through action by laboratory managers, technicians and users.

Higher education laboratories are also important sites for influencing the attitudes and behaviour of the staff and students who work and study in them. Their future careers will provide many opportunities to contribute to both the research and innovation which is needed to create greener lifestyles and technologies, and to broader public and policy debates. Hence, more sustainable labs are a vital element in meeting the world's economic, environmental and social challenges in coming decades.