Championing impactful innovation: Sustainability at Science Creates

In the past year, under the leadership of our Laboratory and Sustainability Manager, Holly Fisher, and the efforts of our Sustainability Working Group, we have successfully made a transformational impact on sustainability across the Science Creates community.

Facilitated by Science Creates’ investment in energy saving technology, resource conservation procedures and innovative hazardous waste management schemes, some key highlights of our community initiatives include:

• Running our incubators and member laboratories on 100% renewable electricity through Good Energy for the sixth year running
• Improving on our 2022 impact by saving more than 38,500 kWh of electricity, equivalent to the annual energy use of 10 average households in the UK, and preventing more than 1.67 tonnes of laboratory waste from polluting in landfills
• Receiving, together with member companies Invivo, Rosa Biotech, Glaia, Imophoron and Extracellular, the LEAF Bronze Award in recognition of our exemplary approaches to resource conservation and responsible waste management in our respective laboratories
• Joining forces with laboratories across 27 countries to save a record-breaking 20.7 million kWh of energy by increasing the temperature of our Ultra Low Temperature (ULT) freezer to -70°C and switching off underutilised cold storage

With all of our members developing solutions to solve global challenges in healthcare, the environment and quality of life, having a positive impact on the world around us is at the core of their work. As such, members of our Sustainability Working Group, which represent over 65% of our in-house ecosystem, have gone even further to implement green practices within their individual companies. Some of these include:

Anaphite – Harnessing the power of chemistry to power the future

• Establishing an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Group to actively advocate for human and planetary well-being in their work
• Switching to a green energy supplier in their own scale-up facility
• Starting to track the environmental effect of their work to actively measure and improve their impact

Invivo – Restoring human health and ecology 

• Optimising their waste management system by collaborating with RecycleLab and improving their disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste 
• Reducing their carbon footprint by switching to using refillable pipette tip boxes; upcycling their equipment to prevent unnecessary waste; and implementing energy saving initiatives
• Including sustainability considerations, such as practices to reduce, reuse and recycle materials, as notes in their Standard Operating Procedures

Kelpi – Taking the plastic out of packaging

• Becoming B-Corp certified, demonstrating their commitment to the triple bottom line of people, profit and planet
• Holding a team volunteering day to support clearing the Bristol Brook, part of Bristol’s River Avon, of litter – they retrieved more than 25 rubbish sacks worth of single-use plastic

Science Creates – Improving human and planetary health

• Reducing our energy consumption by switching to a greener gas supplier to Yü Energy, and investing in additional technology to improve the environmental impact of our air-handling systems
• Holding our first Laboratory Consumables and Services Fair – bringing industry leading suppliers together with academics, founders and scientists to collaborate in championing laboratory sustainability

These efforts reflect our dedication to championing true, global positive change within deep tech. As the Science Creates community grows, we look forward to keeping sustainability at the heart of what we all do – not just in mind of laboratory work, but also business travel, commuter travel, our carbon footprint, supply chain carbon footprint and more. 

With more impactful updates to come, join our mailing list to stay up to date on the latest from our ecosystem.