greeNDiscovery

Sustainable Laboratory Practices at Notre Dame

The greeNDiscovery program reduces Notre Dame’s carbon footprint by promoting energy efficiency in research laboratories. Benefits for participating labs include:

Over 60 research labs have participated in greeNDiscovery so far. As a result, tens of thousands of dollars worth of energy have been saved and hundreds of thousands of pounds of CO2 have been avoided. Dozens of labs have received new, high-efficiency appliances free of charge, as well as free spirit thermometers in exchange for mercury equivalents. Email us today to sign up!

oven_conversion fume_hood galvin_fridge

The greeNDiscovery assessment has 4 steps:

1. Informational meeting and walk-through

• greeNDiscovery staff will ask lab representative basic information about lab operations, safety concerns, and ongoing experiments.
• greeNDiscovery staff will collect information about the number and type of major appliances, computers, printers, and fume hoods.
Time commitment for lab representative: ~30 minutes

2. Approval of recommended metering and preventative maintenance

• greeNDiscovery staff will present a list of appliances they would like to meter and preventative maintenance they would like to perform (vacuuming condensers and defrosting freezers).
• Recommendations will also include preferred computer/printer settings and any mercury thermometers to be exchanged.
• PI will sign off on approved recommendations; lab representative will arrange convenient times for them to be completed.
Time commitment for PI & lab representative: ~15 minutes

3. Metering and preventative maintenance

• greeNDiscovery staff will meter approved appliances for 2-3 days
• greeNDiscovery staff will assist with preventative maintenance (defrosting freezers, vacuuming condensers) if requested by the lab
Time commitment for lab representative: ~15 minutes

4. Summary and recommendations for the future

• greeNDiscovery staff will present the results of their analysis and their recommendations for ongoing lab operations and maintenance at a lab meeting
Time commitment for lab PI & staff: ~15 minutes

Safety: Each greeNDiscovery assessment will be carried out by the Office of Sustainability professional staff and a student intern. An electrical engineer from the Utilities Department will assist with metering as needed. All greeNDiscovery staff members have been trained in lab safety by Risk Management & Safety and have experience working in research laboratories. They will be dressed appropriately and have their own lab coats, safety glasses, and gloves.

How to participate: Each PI who wishes to participate will appoint a representative to be the primary point of contact with the greeNDiscovery team. The representative can be a lab manager, graduate student, researcher, or post-doc. To sign up or request more information, please contact Rachel Novick at 631-1439 or rnovick@nd.edu.

Resources: The greeNDiscovery program was developed in consultation with Laboratories for the 21st Century and the sustainable laboratory programs at UC Santa Barbara and Harvard University.

Downloads: greeNDiscovery Program Description

Links

Laboratories for the 21st Century

UC Santa Barbara LabRATS

Harvard Green Labs

MIT Green Chemicals Wizard

Green Chemistry at the University of Oregon

Center for Green Chemistry & Green Engineering at Yale

Participating Labs

Archie Lab         Ashfeld Lab

Baker Lab          Belovsky Lab

Bernstein Lab         Besansky Lab

Biochemistry Teaching Lab         Bioinformatics Lab

Boyd Lab           Brennecke Lab

Burns Lab
          Center for Environmental Science & Technology

Champion Lab         Chang Lab

Chem. Principles Teaching Lab

Clark Lab            Dovichi Lab

Collins Lab        Duffield Lab

DYNAMO Lab
          
Duman Lab

Environmental Fluid Dynamics Lab

Ferdig Lab         FlowPAC

Genomics Core Facility         Goodenough-Lashua Lab

Goodson Lab          Haldar Lab

Hartland Lab         Hellmann Lab

Helquist Lab         Henderson Lab

Hicks Lab            Hollocher Lab

Huber Lab            Hummon Lab

Hyde Lab             Jones Lab

Jena Lab
           
Kamat Lab

Kandel Lab
           
Kuno Lab

Kerr Lab           Kurama Lab

Lamberti Lab            Lee Lab

Li Lab
           Lieberman Lab

Lodge Lab
     Manning Lab

McDowell Lab       Miller Lab

McLachlan Lab

Mobashery Lab
     
Morales Lab

Neal Lab

Nerenberg Lab         Nowak Lab

Oliver Lab         O’Tousa Lab

Peng Lab         Peterson Lab

Pfrender Lab
        
Romero-Severson Lab

Ravosa Lab

Saddawi Lab
       Schulz Lab

Scheidt Lab         Schmiedeler Lab

Schultz Lab
        SEI Materials Characterization

Serianni Lab         Sevov Lab

Severson Lab         Schafer Lab

Schorey Lab         Simonetti Lab

Smith Lab         Tan Lab

Tao Lab            Taylor Lab

Timp Lab         Zajicek Lab

W. M. Keck Center         Wiest Lab

Wietstock Lab         Wingert Lab