Sustainability
The LEAF programme
UCL’s LEAF programme helps improve the sustainability of your laboratory. 25% of CDB labs currently participate in the LEAF programme and 25% more have signed up to join the programme in 2022/2023 – we want to shift this to 100% of our research labs and our core facilities.
We encourage all CDB labs to join LEAF. To do this, send an email to Martin Farley the UCL Sustainable Laboratory Advisor (m.farley@ucl.ac.uk) and let the CDB green committee know (CDBgreen@gmail.com). Martin will guide you on how to access LEAF online, can visit your lab to provide technical advice, and/or give a talk to the lab group on why sustainability is important for laboratory-based research. Members of the CDB green committee can give practical advice and share their sustainability strategy - no need to reinvent the wheel.
Get started now! The LEAF Submission Deadline is in June 2023.
Useful links:
- Free sustainability resources available here (UCL LEAF).
Carbon offsetting for travel
- Wellcome Trust’s Carbon Offset policy for travel.
- Lobby your funding body for funds towards carbon offsetting by emailing your grant manager.
- Read about Gabriel Waksman’s personal journey to found a charity aiming to help academics and other travelers offset their carbon emissions.
- If you are organising a conference, consider creating a grove for participants to contribute trees to.
- Likewise, if you will be attending a conference, lobby your conference to create a grove where you will be able to offset your carbon emissions.
Free and recycled materials (including lab and office furniture) at UCL
- Warp-it: reuse and recycle surplus redundant resources such as office furniture and lab equipment
- Toner recycling: Drop off toner cartridges in the box provided by Stores, Anatomy Building
- Battery disposal: Battery boxes are provided in the basement of the Anatomy Building (near Stores).