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Awards Worth Achieving: An Intro to Lab Sustainability Accreditation

Aug 10
5 min read

Updated: Aug 22

In a previous Greening the Bench post, Sustainability Isn't a Solo Sport: Why Green Teams Make Every Lab Stronger, we looked at how much easier change becomes when you bring people together. This time, we're looking at how you can demonstrate that the changes your team has made are actually working.


We generally start with simpler tasks of shutting the sash, warming the freezers and switching off BSCs at night. However, we often miss monitoring our progress and seeing our achievements, which is where lab sustainability programmes come in. They turn a collection of good habits into a structured framework with awards, progress logs and a target to aim at.


Why Accreditation Is Worth Your Time


A good scheme does three useful things at once, firstly it demonstrates what positive changes looks like, so you don’t have to invent a checklist from scratch. It gives you independent verification, providing you with credibility to external partners. Furthermore, it gives your team a solid target, as something like a Bronze award is a finish line people will aim towards.


There is a funding angle too. In the Uk, the Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice, hosted by Wellcome with the EAUC as secretariat, has committed signatories right across the sector to embedding sustainability into research practice. From January 2026, researchers in the UK applying to Wellcome or Cancer Research UK need the labs carrying out that work to hold an external sustainability accreditation.


Four Schemes, Four Starting Points


There are four schemes labs are most likely to come across. They overlap a good deal, but each has grown out of a different community, making them relevant for some groups more than others.


LEAF (Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework)

Developed at UCL and launched in 2018, LEAF has become the natural home for academia and higher education. Three levels (Bronze, Silver and Gold) cover energy, water, waste, samples, procurement, travel and research quality. It is now used in institutions across more than a dozen countries, and its built-in calculators estimate your savings in both pounds and tonnes of CO₂e. In LEAF's own pilot, participating lab groups reported average savings of roughly £3,700 a year.


My Green Lab Certification

Founded in the US and now global, My Green Lab is the scheme most often adopted by private-sector and industry labs, particularly across biopharma. It runs as a detailed survey across around 14 categories, producing a numerical score and a level from Bronze up to Green, with recertification every 2 years. It has it's own built-in detailed impact calculator coving a wide range actions and equipment to again estimate your savings in both cost and carbon. It is recognised by the UN Race to Zero campaign, and sits alongside the annual International Laboratory Freezer Challenge.


GILA (Green Impact Laboratory Accreditation)

Created by SOS-UK in 2025, GILA is built on the Green Impact model already running in thousands of organisations worldwide. If your institution already does Green Impact, this is the path of least resistance with the same platform and people you already know. Labs work through a set of actions, get audited, and receive a nationally standardised certificate. Wellcome and CRUK have confirmed in writing that they accept it.


SPARK Hub (Sustainable Practice and Research Knowledge Hub)

The newest of the four, developed by UKRI with the research community, free and open-access. Its certification is still in pilot, using peer-to-peer review with central quality control, so I have not seen it in action yet. What stands out on paper is the scope: SPARK Hub is designed to cover all research activity, not just the wet lab. That is a real gap it is stepping into, because all types of research outside of wet labs have had far less structured support.


No Favourites Here


People often ask which one is best and I think that is the wrong question. All four are credible, all four are recognised within the UK research landscape and the spirit of the Concordat, and all four will leave your lab better off than doing none of them.


They do have different characters, and that is where the comparison lies. LEAF fits academic estates with lots of small lab groups. My Green Lab goes deeper and carries more commercial weight, but the assessment is heavier and there is a larger cost attached. GILA is the smoothest route if Green Impact is already part of your institution's fabric and you are just starting out. SPARK Hub is the broadest in scope and free to use, but it is early days. Pick the one that fits your sector, your budget and the systems you already have. The worst option is the one you never start.


Let the Calculators Make Your Case


One of the most underused features of these schemes is the free tooling that comes with them. Calculators which translate a warmer freezer or a closed sash into estimated pounds and tonnes of CO₂e. LEAF and My Green Lab both give you a structured way to record energy, waste and water savings.


This matters because a conversation with a finance lead or a head of department will often require a conversation on impact. When you can say that a change saves two tonnes of CO₂e and around £900 a year, this provides you with an evidence backed business case.


Action of the Week

  • Spend ten minutes finding out whether your organisation already holds an account with one of these schemes. Ask your sustainability team, estates team or lab manager. Ask which labs are enrolled and whether yours can join the next round.

  • If there isn’t take a look at the websites for these schemes and sign up to the framework that sounds most suited to your lab.


Conclusion: A Step Towards Sustainability


Certification will not do the work for you. What it will do is give shape to work you are probably already doing, and a credible way to prove it, in carbon and in cost.


Sustainable Steps is not here to compete with any of these schemes. We are here to support the labs working their way through them, and the labs that are not ready to start yet. Whether you are chasing Gold or simply closing the sash a little more often, every small action counts.



Frequently Asked Questions


Lab sustainability certification is a structured framework that assesses how your laboratory uses energy, water, plastics, chemicals and equipment, then awards a verified level of achievement. It matters because it replaces a scattered list of good habits with a defined target, gives independent verification of your claims, and increasingly forms part of what UK research funders expect from the labs they support.

LEAF was developed at UCL in 2018 and suits academic and higher education labs. My Green Lab began in the US and is most widely adopted by private-sector and biopharma labs. GILA was created by SOS-UK in 2025 and is the easiest route for organisations already running Green Impact. SPARK Hub is a free, open-access UKRI platform, still in pilot, that covers all research activity rather than just the wet lab. All four are credible and none is universally best.

From January 2026, researchers applying to Wellcome or Cancer Research UK need the labs carrying out the funded work to hold an external sustainability accreditation and to be named on the certificate. This sits alongside the UK Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice, hosted by Wellcome with the EAUC as secretariat, which commits signatory organisations to embedding sustainability into research practice.

Savings vary with the size and type of lab, but they are rarely trivial. In LEAF's own pilot, participating lab groups reported average savings of roughly £3,700 a year. Most schemes include free calculators that convert actions such as warming a freezer or closing a fume hood sash into estimated pounds and tonnes of CO₂e, which makes the business case far easier to put to a finance lead.


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