For the second year in a row, The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Green Labs Program competed against universities and colleges across the globe and saved more electricity than any other academic institution in the annual Freezer Challenge hosted by My Green Lab and the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories. More than 140 UAB labs competed, quadrupling 2021 participation and conserving enough electricity to power 97 homes.

“The ‘Winning Streak’ award requires the winning university to not only save more electricity than all other universities, but also to save more electricity than their previous year. We could not have won this award without our fantastic labs,” said Nick Ciancio, program coordinator at UAB Sustainability. “UAB winning the Freezer Challenge for a second year proves that world-class research and sustainable lab techniques can be synonymous.”

The Freezer Challenge is a six-month process, with points awarded for sustainable actions that promote energy efficiency, sample accessibility and sample integrity. Winners are determined by points earned and energy saved. The UAB Van Der Pol Lab and Upender Manne Lab were two of 14 labs awarded an individual prize. The freezer competition encourages scientists across the government, academic, biopharma and clinical sectors to implement a variety of best practices related to cold storage management in their own labs. 

Ciancio, Emily Colpack, Green Labs coordinator, and Sandra Olisakwe, Green Labs intern, attended the I2SL conference in Pittsburgh to receive the award. Tatyana Gavrikova of the Van Der Pol lab and Prachi Bajpai of the Upender Manne Lab also attended the conference to receive their lab awards.

“[UAB] saved over 2000 kWh/day across the university, but I think even more incredibly, they had 147 scoresheets turned in—about 1/4th of all the scoresheets submitted for the 2022 Freezer Challenge," said Christina Greever, My Green Lab Program Manager and coordinator of the Freezer Challenge. "That is an unbelievable level of engagement with this program; and I commend UAB for all they are doing on the sustainability front.”

The UAB Green Labs Program, the Van Der Pol lab and the Upender Manne lab were featured in the magazine publication Lab Manager, highlighting their success. UAB was also awarded for its Green Labs Program as a whole with the 2022 Lab Sustainability Award for Programs/Initiatives.

“We had a record number of labs compete this year,” Colpack said. “This shows that there are many benefits to competing in the competition.”

Green Labs offered free freezer filter cleanings and temporary cold storage for ULT freezer defrosts to help reduce energy consumption and recommended other energy-saving practices.  

“A few labs were surprised by how much energy they could save by doing simple changes that did not feel like much work," Colpack said. "This proves that being more sustainable does not have to be a lot of work.”

This year’s competition conserved 9.5 million kWh/year – up from 4.5 million kWh/year in 2021, which is equivalent to reducing carbon emissions by 6,732 metric tons per year.  

“UAB Research labs have continued to increase their energy savings year over year through best cold storage practices; these energy savings have also helped ensure researchers are maintaining their samples as efficiently as possible,” Ciancio said. “These changes promote efficient research and mitigate environmental impact—it’s a win-win.”

Green Labs is a UAB Sustainability program that frequently partners with Environmental Health & Safety to help research labs use simple measures to lessen energy use, reduce waste and lower costs. Any lab on the UAB campus can email greenlabs@uab.edu to be a part of the program. Labs have six months to implement changes recommended by UAB Sustainability to earn a Green Lab certification.