Interactive Q&A: Need advice on making your lab green? Post a question here.

Need advice on making your lab green? Post a question here. Our panel of experts will answer your questions about creating an environmentally friendly lab

By Bob Grant

Feature: Can Labs Go Green?

Interactive Q&A: Need advice on making your lab green?

Greenest of the Green

Anatomy of a Green Lab

Green lab slideshow

List of resources

Greening a laboratory can seem like a daunting task. But building an environmentally responsible lab or making an existing lab more sustainable can be affordable, efficient, and relatively simple, if you know where to look, and who to ask.

Now's your chance to get tips and advice from the leading experts in designing, building, and retrofitting laboratories to be more sustainable. These experts have kindly agreed to try to answer any question that you might have about making your lab greener. Simply post a question by clicking here, and one or more of the expert panel members will post a response in due course.

For instance, are you in the process of designing or redesigning a lab and in need of advice? Do you want to know how to incorporate more sustainability into an early-phase building project, how to maximize energy savings in the laboratory setting, or how to minimize waste and pollution in an existing lab? Or are you concerned about the environment and want to know how you can begin to make a difference in the lab?

Also, share any of your experiences - good or bad - with working in a green lab or a not-so-green lab, by posting a comment here.

The panel of experts listed below represents some of the brightest minds in the green lab world. We at The Scientist hope that this can be an ongoing forum where questions are answered, stories are shared, and new solutions are shaped. Here's to a fruitful discussion.

To submit a question or to share your experiences, please click here.

Our panel of experts

	Dan Amon, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Amon works on a variety of energy efficiency and water conservation projects as the National Energy Manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He has led a distinguished career in engineering and construction for more than 20 years and has a wide range of experience in mechanical design and construction, including semiconductor facilities, pharmaceutical facilities, and other high technology industries. He has been a Registered Mechanical Engineer since 1988.
	Will Lintner, U.S. Department of Energy Lintner has been the Department of Energy's project manager for the Laboratories for the 21st Century (Labs21) Program since its inception. Lintner has championed sustainable best practices, primarily energy efficiency, for over 25 years, first with the Department of the Navy and more recently with the US Department of Energy. In 2000, he was recognized for his contributions to reducing the DOE's operating costs by over $100 million per year through investments in energy efficiency retrofit projects.
	Paul Mathew, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Mathew is a Staff Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LNBL). He has a Ph.D. in Building Performance and Diagnostics from Carnegie Mellon University. His area of expertise is energy efficiency and environmental sustainability, and his experience includes technical consulting, tool development, training and financial risk management.
	Dale Sartor, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Sartor heads the LBNL Building Technologies Applications Team, which assists in the transfer of new and underutilized technology through project-focused multidisciplinary teams. He has over twenty five years of professional experience in energy efficiency and renewable energy applications including ten years as a principal of an architecture and engineering company, and seven years as the head of LBNL's In-House Energy Management Program.
	Otto Van Geet, National Renewable Energy Laboratory Van Geet is a Senior Engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), working in the Federal Energy Management Program. He has been involved in the design, construction, and operation of energy efficient R&D facilities for microelectronics, photovoltaic, thermal, and biological research, as well as office and general use facilities. His experience includes passive solar building design, use of design tools, photovoltaic (PV) system design, energy audits, and minimizing energy use. Mr. Van Geet is a LEED? Accredited Professional.
	Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum Architects HOK has been at the forefront of sustainable building design since the initiation of the movement. Employees of the St. Louis-based international company helped design and build the Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise, the first LEED certified laboratory in the country. HOK has had a hand in designing about 30 green labs around the world since the late 1990s.

To submit a question or to share your experiences, please click here.

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Comment on this article

Re: green lab supplies

by Dale Sartor

[Comment posted 2007-07-03 18:30:41]

Perhaps the hospital green organization can help, as they have to deal with lots of disposables. Check out LINK

green lab supplies

by Melissa McCullough

[Comment posted 2007-07-02 14:01:03]

I am working on an EMS (Environmental Management System) for our EPA facilities in RTP, NC, which are largely labs. We need to find green options, where available, for our highest demand supplies for our Sustainable Acquisitions plan. Our top items are things like disposable lab coats, gloves, bench protectors, sanicloths, and waste disposal bottles, and I am coming up empty handed with google searches. Can anyone direct me where I might look?
- many thanks

greening the lab

by Visitacion Dimaandal

[Comment posted 2007-06-11 01:32:28]

Greetings! I am interested in making my biology lab greener. Please include safety to students and also how to manage and maintain it.
Thank you very much

Green Lab

by Jerilyn Bowers

[Comment posted 2007-06-05 18:16:36]

We are currently constructing a 15,000 sq. ft. LEED certified laboratory building. Overall, it has been a great experience. We were fortunate to receive a $55,000 grant from the Kresge Foundation to assist us with planning for a green building. We also joined Labs21, a joint initiative between the Dept. of Energy and EPA. They were extremely helpful with energy modeling and assisting us in planning the mechanical systems.

A: Greening a lab on limited resources

by Expert panel

[Comment posted 2007-05-31 20:47:36]

I'm going to assume that "modest resources" means no capital improvements. Therefore the number one thing is retro-commissioning. Monitoring and tuning the building and all its systems to assure that they are performing optimally. Making sure that all scheduling and reset control strategies are working, minimizing the use of reheat, and making sure equipment that isn't needed is turned off. Likely savings is in the 10-20% range. Budget at approximately one quarter of one year's energy cost (1-2 year payback).
Dale Sartor

I agree with what Dale is saying with the caveat that an operations and maintenance assessment/review needs to be part of the retro-commissioning process. Without an assessment of how the facility is being maintained and what preventative maintenance activities are missing you are going to lose the benefit of the commissioning process fairly quickly.
Dan Amon

Lighting upgrades. How many labs do you walk into with no one in them and all the lights on? Use energy efficient lights, put lights on motion sensors and/or daylight activators. Consider alignment of fixtures in the ceiling to eliminate need for further task lighting. Energy efficiency ￂﾖ itￂﾒs a no brainer!
Norman Fisher, Director of Science + Technology, HOK (Toronto)

With really modest resources, change the light bulbs to the most efficient available and use daylight if at all possible. With slightly less modest resources change the light fixtures. And /or rethink air changes in the lab and use low flow hoods.
Bill Odell: Firmwide Director of Science + Technology, HOK

Keeping the sashes on their fume hoods down / closed. Cost: $0
David Bendet: Director of Science + Technology, HOK (San Francisco)

Reduce the exhaust rate to the lowest safe level.
Otto Van Geet

Go to the University of Oregon website to review their Green Chemistry curriculum and protocols for tips on implementing them in your own lab: LINK
Jeff Schantz: Strategic Director of Science + Technology, HOK

There are four things you can do:
1. Add windows ￂﾖ provides views and adds daylight into the space.
2. Upgrade your equipment. Many pieces of equipment are much more energy efficient than they used to be even 5 years ago. Fume hoods, refrigerators, and dishwashers have the biggest impact.
3. Add a heat recovery wheel to the mechanical systems. They payback is only 1-3 years on the equipment.
4. Upgrade lighting and add motion sensors. Again, the return on investment can be as little as 3 months.
JoAnne Brooks, Lab Architect, HOK

Q: Greening a lab on limited resources

by Bob Grant

[Comment posted 2007-05-31 15:08:12]

Here's a question to kick things off. I'm sure many people reading the article will be thinking I'd love to make my lab more green, if only I had the resources to do so. For researchers with limited resources, what one change would you suggest making that would have the biggest impact in a lab?