In April 2024, Emma Stapleton Thornell, PhD, research assistant professor in Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Occupational Medicine, held what would become known as the first meeting of the Biomedical Sustainability Initiative for the pulmonary research labs in the Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building (PBDB). Their initial focus? How to reduce the carbon footprint produced by their research.

Launched ostensibly in observation of Earth Day, this group of environmentally minded scientists had already started organically gathering around the idea. Some demonstrated interest in the subject following Stapleton Thornell’s presentation on sustainability to the group six months prior; others were motivated to action when approximately 100 trees on the medical campus were removed during spring break in preparation to install an extension of Newton Road through the UI Health Care university campus.

“Earth Day this year coincided with our second floor-wide lab meeting presentation, about six months after the first,” Stapleton explained. “After this floor-wide meeting, a handful of people gathered to talk about different things we struggled with for lab sustainability. We organically formed, and now we’re up to over 10 people.”

This volunteer committee is led by Stapleton Thornell and made up of faculty, staff, and students. It is also supported by established investigators like Clinical Professor of Pulmonary Medicine, Alejandro Comellas, MD; Professor of Pediatric Pulmonary Medicine, Patrick Sinn, PhD; and Professor of Pulmonary Medicine, Michael Welsh, MD. Comellas invited Stapleton Thornell to speak with the university’s Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS). Sinn showed his support by being the first to voluntarily turn his freezer’s temperature up, and also by inviting Stapleton Thornell to speak with the Viral Vector Core Facility. The Pappajohn Biomedical Institute (PBI), directed by Welsh, paid for the committee’s energy monitors.

“We are partnering with the Office of Sustainability and the Environment–who was independently working on a similar project–and [Environmental Health and Safety] for a P3 grant proposal to expand the work more university-wide,” Stapleton Thornell said.

The group began connecting with external experts who lead sustainability efforts at different universities like University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), University of California-Irvine, and the non-profit My Green Lab, modeling their efforts after proven initiatives and best practices. From these conversations, they developed a set of tips for optimizing sustainability in lab spaces—but many of these ideas can be applied anywhere in the university, and have a significant impact on the enterprise’s systems:

The group now meets weekly and sends out a weekly newsletter to keep information updated, fresh, and compelling for their audience of researchers, and to keep their own momentum going. Subject matter focuses on the committee’s own tripartite mission: to work towards more sustainable purchases, decreasing energy use, and improving waste handling.

“A big push for us is these biohazard bins. Everything that is put inside them gets autoclaved or incinerated. They are required for truly biohazardous waste, but often people throw clean plastic and other non-biohazardous material in them out of convenience,” Stapleton Thornell said. “We estimated non-hospital biohazardous waste handling to cost the university over $1.6 million in 2022 alone.”

Research Manager in the Stoltz and Zabner labs, and fellow sustainability enthusiast, Linda Powers, MS, added, “Some of the items in those big red tubs gets incinerated. So, if we could send fewer big red tubs, we’re contributing less to the burning—and it’s often plastic burning,” which releases harmful chemicals and pollutants in the air as a result. Stapleton Thornell’s group has found that much of their waste is autoclaved—meaning sterilized using pressurized steam, then landfilled.

“Processing of biohazardous waste is extremely energy intensive and leads to secondary pollution,” Stapleton Thornell said.

The committee now tracks several metrics, like how many biohazardous tubs their floor is using. The team uses energy monitors to track which machines consume the most energy.* These data help them tailor interventions to other labs, as well, attempting to mitigate their contributions to pollution. In reviewing these data, they discovered that one of the best ways to save energy is to turn up ultra-low temperature freezers, which can consume as much energy as a house, from -80°C to at least -70°C, reducing energy use by as much as 30%.

“This practice has been adopted by many research institutions, including Dartmouth, Harvard, CU-Boulder, UCSB and Davis, the CDC, AstraZeneca, Genentech, among others,” Stapleton said.

Shutting the sash on fume hoods and biosafety cabinets, turning them off when not in use, and reducing the number of autoclave loads run also makes quite an impact. The group also prioritizes purchasing packaging with reduced Styrofoam and plastic content. Powers led the effort to work with the university’s Biochemistry Stores to supply more sustainable options to the 6th-floor PBDB labs.

“All of these energy savings come from indirect costs that go on grants. We’re trying to quantify the amount of money we’re saving by collecting this data,” Stapleton Thornell said. “We have estimated our annual energy savings to be over $6,000, not including savings on reduced-packaging supplies. We have worked with other labs to turn up 28 ULT freezers, saving approximately $4,200 on that alone. If you amplify these actions by the number of labs in the university, there is a lot more money we could be saving. We hope to tap into the university’s new energy tracking system to better quantify our savings.”

Stapleton Thornell and the Biomedical Sustainability Initiative have already begun to make a notable impact on the greater Iowa community: Stapleton Thornell was one of the five lead authors on the Iowa Climate Statement 2024 that was released in early October; the team launched a new website for their Biomedical Sustainability Initiative for labs; and Stapleton Thornell has given multiple interviews to local news outlets on the subject (KWWL, Iowa’s News Now, Iowa Public Radio).

“We are learning as we go, too; I think it’s critical to not be afraid to ask questions in the quest for more sustainability,” Stapleton Thornell said.

The Biomedical Sustainability Initiative has accomplished an impressive amount since its inception, including, but not limited to:

• Undergraduate-led lab onboarding: Quarterly, the group identifies who is new in the lab and trains them on environmental stewardship/lab best practices. Led by Lorena Tran (undergraduate research assistant), Shakayla Lamer, BS (research intern) and Griffin Boysen (undergraduate, Iowa State University).
• Website development: Alexandra Loren, BS (research intern) project managed creating this content hub.
• Mapping innovative solutions: Sarah Ernst (lab manager and researcher, Welsh lab) “[She] is a genius who understands personal and floor-wide habits and creatively thinks of solutions. We wouldn’t be where we are without her,” Stapleton Thornell said.
• Moving to sustainable products: Van Schaeffer is the Thermo Fisher representative who finds great prices for sustainable products for the group.
• Monitoring energy consumption data: Mitch Riley (postdoc, Welsh lab) reviews and analyzes energy consumption data for the 6th-floor PBDB labs.

“Any effects we’ve had are only because of all the creative brains and effort behind them–it’s a great group,” Stapleton Thornell said.

 *The Biomedical Sustainability Initiative wants to help your lab’s sustainability efforts. Contact Emma Stapleton Thornell to borrow monitors or share data.