Ecomapping® – A Practical Approach to Implement Sustainability in Your Lab
Event Description
Laboratory work is resource intensive. Large equipment such as -80°C freezers use on average as much energy as a single-family home, plastic consumables are necessary but leave a huge amount of waste, and water consumption is also immense. So, the question is what to do? After all, samples have to be stored safely, experiments cannot be easily changed, and desirable measures are often simply not possible for safety reasons. Checklists and green lab guides can help and are a good starting point. However, every laboratory is different and has its own questions, hurdles and problems. A suggestion that is easy to implement for one lab may be difficult or even impossible for a neighboring group.
This is where Ecomapping® comes in. With its help, laboratories create an individual action plan. The core of the method is to focus on the environmental impacts of laboratory work, such as waste, water and energy consumption, emissions, chemicals and consumables, but safety aspects are also taken into account. This presentation explains the key features of the methodology and uses practical examples to give an insight into the improvements that laboratories can achieve using it.
After attending the webinar you can expect to:
- Understand the concept of Ecomapping® and how it can be tailored to address the unique sustainability challenges in different laboratory environments.
- Learn about the significant environmental impacts of laboratory operations, including energy consumption, waste generation, and water usage, and how to assess these factors effectively.
- Discover practical strategies and actionable steps for implementing sustainability measures in your laboratory.
- Learn about the successful application of the Ecomapping® method through best practice examples.
This webinar will be recorded and will be available on demand later, if the time doesn't fit to your time zone!
Speaker:
Dr. Kerstin Hermuth-Kleinschmidt
NIUB Sustainability Consulting
Kerstin Hermuth-Kleinschmidt graduated in chemistry and holds a PhD in microbiology from the university of Freiburg, Germany. She worked for several years in sales and technical customer service in the life science industry, before she turned her attention to the topic of sustainability. As an independent consultant, speaker and author of publications on various aspects of sustainability, her focus is now on the implementation and monitoring of sustainability processes and the practical implementation of sustainability in scientific work and research. She offers workshops and lectures on specific aspects of sustainability in laboratory and research work and the context of life sciences companies as well as individual support. In her daily work with labs, she uses the Ecomapping® method that helps labs to develop their individual action plan to make lab work more sustainable.
Since 2017, she has also been teaching as part of the “Studium Generale. Forum Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft” (FORUM) at KIT Karlsruhe as part of the Sustainable Development degree programme to pass on her knowledge to the younger generation.
