SP0240: McGill-Wide Green Labs Initiative

The overall mission of the Green Labs Initiative is to cultivate environmental awareness within the research laboratories and teaching spaces across the various laboratories and departments McGill wide. Our mission is three-fold; (1) To implement sustainable practices across the laboratories within McGill, (2) To initiate a cultural change that implements sustainable practices in our daily work routines, and (3) To educate research personnel and trainees on sustainable practices.

As an extension of the initial MNI-Neuro Green Labs initiative, several other “Green Committees” have already begun to promote Green practices within their respective departments. For instance, we have distributed recycling bins and displayed signage above the bins within different labs to increase consciousness of adequate disposing techniques of lab waste. Plastic recycling bins have been placed in tissue culture rooms as they generate large amounts of plastic recycling owed to single use plastic material required for sterility. To date, members of several Green Committees across McGill are leading many of these initiatives, however, our overall objective is to foster a cultural change where each lab will eventually be educated in terms of sustainable lab practices and will be able to naturally maintain environmental consciousness without the need of a committee per se.

To educate and implement sustainable laboratory practices, the McGill-wide Green Labs Initiative requires funding. Our goals can be grouped into four main categories. (1) Providing and promoting appropriate resources for recycling, (2) Developing an educational initiative to minimize unnecessary use of energy (3) Promoting re-use to minimize consumption of single use plastics and (4) Promoting environmentally conscious practices outside the lab at departmental teaching and social events.