Help MIT meet its Climate Action Plan by joining the MIT Green Labs Program. Simply register your lab by April 18 and fill out the Green Lab Assessment Form. This form highlights effective strategies your lab can adopt to save energy and water and reduce waste.

The Green Lab Certification process is straightforward. Once most of the researchers in your lab have filled out the baseline assessment form, you?ll have six months to implement recommended resource-saving measures. In the fall, your lab will receive a reminder to submit a new assessment form reflecting measures you?ve adopted. Then, depending on the extent of the measures implemented, your lab will be certified at the bronze, silver, gold, or platinum level.

MIT has eight labs certified so far and welcomes new participants. In addition to feeling good about doing the right thing, you?ll have the chance to attend educational seminars and network with researchers from other departments.

This initiative began during IAP 2016, when 12 labs from across the Institute signed up for the challenge to save the most resources and come up with the most innovative conservation ideas. This lively contest resulted in eight labs being certified as green labs. Together they produced an overall annual savings of 80,517 gallons of water and 21,600 KWh of electricity; they also recycled 343 pounds of materials and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 18,618 pounds.

The 2016 Green Labs Contest also yielded innovative ideas about ways to reduce resource waste, including these notable contributions:

• Chemical Engineering developed a glove recycling program;
• Mechanical Engineering?s Device Research Laboratory created the Lab Energy Assessment Center (LEAC), which won the contest for ?Most Innovative Idea.?

LEAC offers a kit to measure total energy use in your lab. By monitoring energy use for different pieces of lab equipment in various use modes, you can determine the most effective ways to reduce energy without impacting research. As an added incentive, there are UROPs ready to come to your lab to deploy the kit.

The Green Labs Program is brought to you by the Environment, Health and Safety Office, Department of Facilities, and Office of Sustainability. Contact Pam Greenley or Niamh Kelly if you have any questions.

You can find the registration form here.