The LivingGreen team has been busy certifying more labs for our LGL program! Earlier this month, we conducted first assessments for three different lab spaces.

First, we worked with Andres in the El-Samad lab. Andres and his team were doing a great job spreading the sustainability culture throughout the lab. They even identified areas of improvement before we did, showing their commitment to greening up their lab space. We look forward to returning to their lab and seeing their improvements.

We also worked with Hubert and Tatiana (pictured above with LivingGreen teammate Brianna) at the tissue core lab at Mount Zion. It was clear that this lab was ready to go green! Recycling and composting  was easily accessible and encouraged. We were also happy to see lots of stickers and signs reminding people to re-use paper, turn off computer monitors, maintain freezers, and recycle toner cartridges. 

The LivingGreen Labs team is now looking to certify even more labs before our Sustainability Awards on May 2! If you or someone you know wants to get certified, let us know!

The LivingGreen team paired up with Fisher Scientific and Steris to host an ice cream social at UCSF Mission Bay’s Rock Hall. We invited staff, faculty, and students alike to join us for a tasty snack and to learn more about sustainability on campus. Over 100 people came to the event — we know because the 100-pack of ice cream cones disappeared in just an hour! Of those visitors, a great number signed our Sustainability Pledge!

While our visitors were munching, we shared the latest and greatest UCSF LivingGreen news with them. Because Rock Hall is primarily a research building, we focused on promoting our LivingGreen Labs program, which has already taken off at other halls across Mission Bay. Our team handed out several freezer brushes, which are used to scrape off excess ice and make the freezers more energy efficient. We also teamed up with Steris to talk about their glass pipette wash rack systems which can save a lab millions of gallons of water a year!

Overall, this event was a success! We taught a lot of students, staff, and faculty about the LivingGreen team and how to be more sustainable in their laboratories. We look forward to more events and assessments at Rock Hall!

We are continuing our effort to certify labs across the UCSF campuses and recently had the chance to assess two lab spaces in HSE 901 - Ed Hsiao & Hanna Kim, and Sunny Sun.

With a shared kitchen space across all of the labs in this space we found a few areas for improvement. Currently, they have one large shared recycling bin, which by examining obviously gets significant use, but this space is lacking composting. We are working with Facilities Services to to implement the composting program throughout HSE, which this lab is very interested in being a part of. Also, we found multiple opportunities to install faucet aerators, which will bring the sink water flow rate from 2.2 gallons per minute to 0.5 gallons per minute.

We were impressed by the lab-wide use of reusable cups and dishes, rather than using disposable dish-ware. Sunny’s lab made sure to employ a scrap paper re-use bin in their space and both labs are very eager to improve their sustainability. With a few minor changes they are well on their to getting LivingGreen certified!

Last month, I joined my LivingGreen teammates Tulip and Yovanni for an ice cream social at Genentech Hall on the Mission Bay campus. Our co-host was Fisher Scientific, and together we drew in a great crowd of both students and lab staff. 

Our team hosts ice cream social every month or so to promote LivingGreen, collect new sustainability pledges, share waste management information, and spread excitement about energy efficiency across campus. This month, we also focused on promoting our LivingGreen Labs program, an initiative to assess UCSF laboratories and facilitate positive change in regards to their energy usage. We targeted Genentech Hall for our event because the facility was already very supportive of sustainability measures, and we wanted to make sure each and every lab in the building was striving to reach the same goals. 

We had over 50 new pledges at the ice cream social, and 14 new labs interested in either starting the assessment process or learning more about our unique incentive programs. We’re currently working on reaching out to these new contacts and look forward to our next event! 

The Lab Assessment with Torsten Wittmann, was very successful. We actively discussed methods of involving the staff of the lab, and proposed reminders about waste and energy reduction as well as water conservation. One aerator installed in the break room sink reducing the flow rate by 55% will save the lab an estimated 20,000 gallons per year, given the forty people using the sink on a regular basis. Looking forward to working with Torsten in the future, and observing the improvements on the follow up assessment!

-Brandon

With each new laboratory assessment, the LivingGreen Lab checklist is getting stronger and more concise. We have Valerie Weaver to thank for opening the doors of her  Leed-Silver Certified lab for the Green Team. Christian Franz guided us through the space and gave us valuable things to research and study to create a solid lab assessment. Their lab was amazing and we hope that all labs at UCSF will reach the same level of efficiency as theirs.

Brianna Singleton