School receives Silver Lab Award for sustainable research practices. The Silver Lab Award acknowledges teams that go beyond basic compliance, implementing resource-efficient procedures and environmentally responsible ways of working. It was awarded by the University of Edinburgh’s Social Responsibility and Sustainability department. Wet labs at the School demonstrated their commitment to improving the sustainability of the way they work by evaluating their operating practices, ranging from energy saving and equipment sharing to reducing duplication of work. Technical staff worked with lab managers and individual lab users to ensure that their labs were meeting the required standards. I think that the Sustainable Lab Awards have been an excellent opportunity to take a close look at how our research laboratories run, and how we can operate them more responsibly. It has also been quite good for morale, as a number of labs found that they were already meeting a number of the Sustainable Lab Awards criteria without needing to do any additional work to satisfy them. It's also been an impressive collaborative effort across multiple different labs, and I think that this has encouraged a sense of "togetherness" between students and staff across different work areas. There are always more things we could do to make the way we work more sustainable, and I think participation in the Sustainable Lab Awards has been an excellent start! Mark Lauchlan Technical Manager – Research at the School of Engineering Related links Sustainable Lab Awards Tags Sustainability Publication date 04 Mar, 2026
