Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of research laboratory protocols

Medical research laboratories have traditionally concentrated on carrying out the best scientific research for new
discoveries in medicine. However, we are all aware now of the importance of Climate Change and other environmental aspects of daily life like waste management, pollution, problems with single use plastics etc. Research laboratories use a lot of plastic items (e.g. PPE, gloves, equipment etc) and we know that laboratory plastics disposal makes up about 2 % of all plastics waste globally. We also know that with new knowledge and measurements, and some changes in practices, we can greatly reduce such material and energy consumptions, making our science discoveries much more environmentally friendly. Work done very recently by the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) shows that most of their environmental and carbon footprints are caused by the work that goes on in the laboratories (rather than from commuting to work there or for heating or lighting in its buildings).

Our project is a joint effort therefore by the world renowned ICR and the Centre for Environment & Sustainability at the nearby University of Surrey to carefully measure the environmental footprint of several laboratory procedures at the ICR and, with their scientists, to re-design or adapt them to make them more 'sustainable' - without compromising the quality of the science. This is a ground-breaking project as our 'gold standard' for environmental impact assessment (known as LCA) has only been used very little on such studies. It is undoubtedly the best approach to get real, meaningful data that will help guide the improvements to the science footprint and, as well as measuring what we do presently, we will also be testing out new ways of doing these lab procedures and measuring the improvements.

We are sure that high quality environmental data will be highly respected by the scientists at ICR (and much more widely) and will help to bring valuable innovation into the ways we go about making the new, and more sustainable, medical discoveries of the future.

We will calibrate the environmental impact profiles of laboratory medical research protocols at ICR. The insights gained will be used by the scientist and environmental analysis teams to co-create re-designs and adaptations to maximise scientific benefit at improved environmental impact, particularly zero carbon. A whole a life cycle (cradle-to-grave) approach, using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology (ISO 14040/44, EC-PEF), will be applied to up to 5 current ICR laboratory science protocols. This LCA research will create new, detailed, bespoke Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) datasets for all materials, chemicals, energy, wastes (incl. recycling) and equipment and staff time needed per protocol to establish robust baseline environmental 'footprints'.
These LCA footprints will calibrate the protocols' Global Warming potential (Carbon footprint), resource depletion, ecotoxicity, acidification, eutrophication and other environmental impacts. The 'baseline' LCAs will then be used inform the co-design of revised protocols with equal/enhanced efficiency and accuracy but with calibrated environmental benefits. Examples of at least 2 of these 'environmentally adapted' (EA) protocols will be demonstrated at ICR during the project.
The protocols will be selected from the following: Electrophoresis and Blotting, Microscopy and Imaging, Enzyme reactions, DNA and Gene expression analysis, Cell culture manipulations, cell health (viability) and phenotypic assays based on their:
i) Frequency of use, ii) Estimated carbon/environmental savings potential, and iii) Potential for miniaturisation and new technology.
Initial 'targets' are: Enzyme assays [generic ATP turnover], and Cell viability assays [metabolism based readout]. Assay quality (robustness, reproducibility) is readily quantified (Z prime) to show the EA protocols have no effect on data output.
The protocol groups require a diverse range of inputs, operating needs (inc. PPE) and wastes and are in widespread use.