Category: Wet Labs
Level: Gold
Author: Schell B., Hermuth-Kleinschmidt K., Scagliotti V., Weber P.,
The Impact: <p>Green procurement</p>
Details
Before purchasing equipment, collecting environmental and performance data helps avoid buying devices that are short-lived, inefficient or unsuitable. Cheap equipment can fail prematurely, consume excessive energy, be difficult to repair, or become obsolete quickly. Evaluating serviceability, durability, repairability, and long-term operational footprint helps ensure that purchases are both sustainable and economically sound, though can be challenging to do.
Before purchasing, you should always consider utilising existing equipment.
Environmental criteria include manufacturing footprint, repairability, availability of spare parts, energy consumption, water use, heat output and end-of-life options. Performance criteria include reliability, testing conditions, lifespan expectations and future-proofing updatable and/or modular (particularly relevant in rapidly evolving fields like sequencing). Considering prices is important, but should include whole-life costing.
Note that an eco-label is not necessarily an indication of the product itself being more sustainable, unless there is a transparent minimum threshold. To date, no existing eco-label for lab products is known to do this. As such, it is typically necessary to compare. If you have a sustainable lab coordinator at your organisation, consider seeking advice if uncertain.
Resources
