Two bronze LEAF awards granted to Alan Dobson's Laboratory at UCC
After 18 months of quantified sustainability improvements, MARBLES partner University College Cork (UCC) has announced that two of its School of Microbiology labs have been granted the Bronze Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF) award! The award granted to MARBLES researcher Alan Dobson's Lab was spearheaded by fellow MARBLES researcher Stephen Jackson and David Woods.
As the first university in the world to receive the Green Flag from the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE), UCC is committed to reducing its impact on the environment. Run for and by the lab community it serves, the Green Labs Community at UCC is a ground-up approach to sustainability. Compared to other industries, laboratories can tend to use a lot of resources and produce a lot of waste. This doesn’t have to be the case going forward. The environmental impact of research can be lessened by implementing new ideas and adhering to existing guidelines. In places where sustainability has not traditionally been a top concern, even small changes can have a significant impact. UCC follow the LEAF programme, which was developed as a green lab standard to improve the sustainability and efficiency of labs. LEAF offers a range of activities that help lab users use less plastic, water, energy and other resources, which will help lower the lab's overall carbon emissions and contribute to a culture that supports high-quality research.