6 December 2024 – Nikola Čanigová, Bianca Schell and Benoit Nicolet were three of the six shortlisted candidates for the EMBO Sustainability Award. Here, they reflect on projects that are encouraging scientific groups and institutes to rethink approaches to consumption and waste.
Sparking conversations through art
Amid the elegance of the 2024 Viennese Science Ball, Saki the Artist turned heads with a striking ball gown made entirely from discarded lab gloves. Saki, a molecular biologist-turned-artist, spent over 200 painstaking hours stitching the gown, using just a few weeks’ worth of nitrile glove waste collected from six labs at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA). Remarkably, there was another 400 gloves left over, enough to make a second gown, underscoring the message that Saki and her collaborator Nikola Čanigová, an ISTA PhD Student, want to get people talking about: science labs have a waste problem, and it is time to tackle it.
“When I stepped into the ballroom, the gown immediately sparked conversations,” says Saki, who has transformed some of ISTA’s used lab plastics into functional artworks and high-end pieces, such as clothing and chandeliers. “People wanted to know how many gloves went into it, how long it took to collect them and whether this kind of reuse could be scaled. The project helps people grasp the volume of waste generated by science labs, where individual institutes can go through hundreds of thousands of gloves each year.”
The project stemmed from a moment of realization for Čanigová. One evening clearing up after an experiment, she realized the gloves, tubes and pipettes she had used over the course of the day had filled a trash bin to the brim. “I went into science to help make the world a better place, and that’s when it hit me: what if I’m creating more problems than solutions?” she recalls. This inspired her to initiate a “green labs” initiative at ISTA, in collaboration with Green Labs Austria, where her team implemented a campus-wide recycling programme and sustainability trainings for new employees.
“We wanted to get people talking about these issues, and that’s when we decided we needed someone who could not only show the data but also connect with people on an emotional level,” Čanigová explains. As luck would have it, Saki had recently relocated to Austria and had an impressive portfolio of turning waste into impactful art. Saki recalls their first meeting: “There was this huge pile of discarded serological pipettes, and I immediately thought they would look amazing as light fixtures. The chandeliers that I created from these materials are elegant, yet carry a simple, powerful message about the unseen waste science produces that we hope could ultimately inspire systemic change.”
Tracking lab energy use
From bold impressions of gowns and chandeliers to less visible opportunities to improve the sustainability of science, Bianca Schell takes a detective-like approach in her PhD project at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, to uncover opportunities to reduce waste and energy use in research environments. One of her focus areas is the efficiency of building ventilation systems, which has enabled the university to reduce the energy use of just one building by the equivalent of 25 family households per year. “Ventilation is essential for ensuring lab air quality and safety, but the needs vary greatly depending on the research being conducted,” says Schell, who is also affiliated with the University of Konstanz. “Unfortunately, many ventilation systems are built to rigid, one-size-fits-all standards, often leading to excessive ventilation. On top of that, universities often lack the resources needed to effectively monitor and reduce ventilation energy consumption.”
In Konstanz, Schell together with others started a local lab sustainability group and launched a project that brought together biologists, chemists, physicists and social scientists to think about this issue. “Our goal was to assess energy-saving measures for different types of work, particularly focusing on optimizing ventilation,” she explains. “Rather than overhauling entire systems, we explored cost-effective solutions. Some labs require minimal ventilation at daytime, while others that use hazardous chemicals need constant high airflow. It’s thinking about ventilation levels in the context of individual groups and their particular research and needs.”
During the project, Schell encountered several logistical and coordination challenges, but a turning point came when her team received a regional support grant. “The complexity of the issue requires expertise from many fields that don’t always traditionally work together: technicians, building managers, legal experts in health and safety, waste managers and facility management,” she explains. “One of our approaches has been to connect these groups to focus on solutions and the grant gave us the opportunity to do that. Through our assessments, we create blueprints that begin with broad questions but lead to specific actions, helping to make a stronger case to decision makers that these changes are worth the effort. What’s important is ensuring that data is available to guide these decisions.”
Filling data gaps
Benoit Nicolet is focused on providing some of that missing data. As a PhD student, he was curious about the environmental impact of single-use plastics in the lab but unable to find clear answers, so he decided to investigate himself. Nicolet, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, remembers asking colleagues: “Some argued that reusing was energy-intensive, while others were more concerned about the plastic waste piling up in their bins—without the data, it was hard to know the right approach.”
Nicolet and his collaborator Martin Farley decided to try and put numbers on the environmental impact of lab materials. “We found that while single-use plastics may reduce energy consumption, their carbon footprint is often much higher when considering the wider emissions from production,” explains Nicolet. “The findings suggest that research facilities should prioritize reusables, reserving single-use plastics for specific needs. This data is crucial not only for guiding personal decisions but also for informing policymakers.”
Nicolet and his colleagues not only look at lab waste but also examine how scientific methods affect sustainability. “Our research shows that when experiments aren’t reproducible, it can greatly increase a lab’s environmental footprint,” he says. “Therefore, one of the most powerful things that a group can do to reduce the footprint of their science is to make all findings openly available, ensuring they are well annotated, and endeavour to adopt FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability) principles.”
And while collecting data is crucial, Nicolet emphasizes the importance of centralization and acting on it. Therefore, another focus has been on building sustainable lab networks across Europe. “Many researchers track the impacts of their lab activities, like measuring energy consumption, but the data often isn’t shared,” he explains. “The challenge is centralizing this data, along with necessary metadata. Our goal is to develop a database that integrates this information, providing a clearer understanding of lab energy use. It will give us a much better sense of where we stand and how progress is being made.”
Nicolet hopes that ultimately such approaches can make the findings of science stronger. “I love data because it helps you make informed decisions about where to focus your efforts,” he adds. “A lot of sustainability initiatives come from the grassroots, and this means coming from a feeling of injustice and wanting to do better. By promoting openness, collaboration and informing people through the scientific method, we can support good decision making, the growth of sustainable practices and make meaningful changes to the research environment.”
DOI: doi.org/10.1039/D4SU00387J
