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Sustainable Labs

Lab sustainability aims to foster health safety, resource efficiency and waste reduction strategies to minimize the environmental footprint while promoting scientific advancement. Labs account for nearly 44% of energy use at Harvard but take up only around 20% of the space. The Office for Sustainability works with researchers, staff, faculty, and building managers to implement sustainable practices and technologies in lab buildings.

Shut the Sash

  • The “Shut the Sash” chemical fume hood competition started in 2005 within Harvard’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.
  • The “Shut the Sash” competition promotes keeping fume hoods closed when not in use to reduce high energy consumption.
  • The initiative expanded to include 19 labs and over 350 researchers, resulting in substantial energy savings and improved lab safety. This makes the “Shut the Sash” competition Harvard’s most impactful behavioral change program for energy conservation.
Labs in the the Shut the Sash Competition are provided feedback in real-time on their fume hood energy use via digital displays reporting cubic-feet-of-air-per-minute (CFM) flow, with signage indicating how that number connects with the lab group's customized goal.

White Papers

These white papers provide detailed insights into how Harvard leads the charge toward healthier, more sustainable labs.

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External Partnerships & Collaborations

Quentin Gilly, Assistant Director, FAS Energy and Sustainability with the Office for Sustainability, and President of the I2SL New England Chapter, (right), leads a tour of I2SL members through the Science and Engineering Complex in the fall of 2022.
Quentin Gilly, Assistant Director, FAS Energy and Sustainability with the Office for Sustainability, and President of the I2SL New England Chapter, (right), leads a tour of I2SL members through the Science and Engineering Complex in the fall of 2022.

Partnerships and collaborations on lab sustainability topics are important both internally and externally.

  • The Office for Sustainability partnered with the City of Cambridge on a multi-year city-wide laboratory benchmarking exercise, which was the largest and most consistent benchmarking dataset of its type ever to be collected from a local area. OFS has also partnered with the City of Cambridge Compact and the Boston Green Ribbon Commission.
  • We partner with the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) on the sharing of best practices and through planning events and lab tours with the New England Chapter.
  • We collaborate with non-profits such as Seeding Labs, My Green Lab, and The Lab Project to lead in making lab sustainability a reality, and with vendors such as Eversource Energy and Green Labs Recycling to pilot innovative technologies aimed at decarbonizing the built environment and reducing waste on campus.

Upcoming Events

Sustainability Events at Harvard

April

04

Thursday
5:00 pm-7:00 pm GMT+0000

Open to the Public

Screening of ‘The Hollow Tree’ with Director Kira Akerman

Harvard Graduate School of Education

Join us for the Boston premiere of “Hollow Tree,” hosted by the Harvard Hutchins Center’s History Design Studio and co-sponsored by HGSE. The 73-minute award winning documentary follows three young women as they travel to different sites along the Mississippi River and imagine Louisiana’s past — its history of slavery, Indigenous dispossession, and colonization — and, by extension, Louisiana’s future. The screening will be followed by a conversation with Director Kira Akerman, Producer Monique Walton and the documentary film’s three protagonists, Mekenzie Fanguy, Annabelle Pavy, and Tanielma DaCosta.

March

20

Wednesday
5:00 pm-6:00 pm GMT+0000

Community Event

Harvard Speaks on Climate Change: Federal Climate Rules – A Status Report

climate change
Policy
Salata Institute

The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability and the Vice Provost Office for Advances in Learning present Harvard Speaks on Climate Change, a series featuring Harvard faculty working on different dimensions of the climate challenge. In this session, Professor Jody Freeman will discuss the EPA’s greenhouse gas rules for the auto, power, and oil and gas sectors and the SEC’s final rule on climate-related financial risk. Professor Freeman will also explore if these rules were weaker than expected and what lies ahead in the courts. Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability and Director of the Salata Institute, Jim Stock, will host.

March

23

Saturday
2:00 pm-4:00 pm GMT+0000

Open to the Public

Film Screening: The Last Human

climate change
Environment
film

Our most basic understanding of the origins of life was recently turned upside down when Greenlandic scientist Minik Rosing discovered the first traces of life on Earth in a small fjord near Isua, Greenland. His discovery predated all previous evidence by over 300 million years. Life began in Greenland. At the same time, its melting ice masses are disintegrating day-by-day, and scientists around the world agree that it could drown our entire civilization if it continues.

Director Ivalo Frank’s new film is a tribute to a vast, scenic country caught between two extremes: the beginning and the end of life on Earth as we know it. Frank’s film is anchored by an encounter with a group of children from the village of Kangaatsiaq who fall in love, form friendships, and struggle with loss and longing.

A Q&A with filmmaker Ivalo Frank and Sussi Adelholm, Head of School in Kangaatsiaq, Greenland, will follow the screening.

April

15

Multi-day Event

Celebrating Birds: A Papier Mâché Workshop

In this workshop, you will use museum specimens to inspire your own avian creation. Over five half days, artist Gail Boyajian will guide you from start to finish as you build and paint a papier mâché bird from scratch, using everyday materials.

We will complement the art-making process with visits to the museum galleries as well as the ornithology research collections.

March

19

Tuesday
12:00 pm-1:30 pm GMT+0000

The Greener Gender: Women Politicians and Deforestation in Brazil

This paper examines the impact of women’s political representation on deforestation rates in Brazil. Using close election regression discontinuity design, we show that women, when elected to office, are more likely to drive improved environmental outcomes due to factors such as reduced access to corrupt networks that influence the enforcement of environmental laws at the local level. Altogether, our findings demonstrate that women’s political representation significantly reduces deforestation rates in the Brazil.

This event is hybrid, to attend remotely register at the ticket link.

Presented in collaboration with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs