Labs

Across Harvard, building managers and University leaders are responding to the urgent need to address climate change by renovating and constructing greener buildings that cut energy use and are healthier, happier places for staff to work and students to learn.

DePace Lab is located on the 4th floor of the Harvard Medical School’s Warren Alpert Building at 200 Longwood Avenue in Boston, MA. The renovation project achieved LEED-CI certification at the Gold level in July 2009. This was the first renovation of a wet lab at Harvard University to achieve a LEED certification, and shows the Medical School's strong committment to sustainability.

Jack Conlin, Group Leader at FAS’s Molecular & Cellular Biology department mailroom, began working to reduce paper waste from mailings years ago, but it was only recently that he realized that he could team up with the Office for Sustainability and with Intra-

Achieving Gold certification under the LEED for Commercial Interiors version 2.0 rating system in June 2010, the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ (FAS) Jacobsen Lab is an approximately 6,000 square foot organic chemistry lab located on the second floor of Mallinckrodt Laboratory Building at 12 Oxford Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Campaign

The "Take the Stairs" campaign is an initiative aimed at improving human health (by getting people to take the stairs more often) and reducing our environmental impact (by using the elevator less and thereby using less energy).

Harvard University honored and recognized Harvard faculty, students, and staff who have made significant contributions to green house gas reduction and sustainability efforts at Harvard at the first annual Green Carpet Awards on Friday, April 23rd, a day after the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day.

Harvard Medical School received an Award of Environmental Excellence from Stericycle® for its use of reusable sharps containers in the HIM & NRB buildings. Since HMS began using the reusable sharps containers in May 2009, 6,774 lbs of plastic have been diverted landfills as a result of this initiative.

On April 23^rd, 2010, Harvard University celebrated the first annual Harvard Green Carpet Awards - an event to acknowledge the individuals and teams across the University who have contributed to reducing our environmental impact.

If you're a researcher visiting this site, you probably already know that fume hoods are voracious consumers of energy, so we have put together some resources for you to help you reduce fume hood energy use.

1) Proper hood usage

Ensuring adequate space for waste disposal facilities and signage is incredibly important both for new lab move-ins and during the ongoing operation of the lab. Ideally, labs will have one or more ‘waste stations’ that include the following: