To achieve Stanford’s sustainability goals, a shift toward environmentally friendly purchasing across campus is essential, particularly in research and teaching laboratories, which heavily consume emissions-intensive and hazardous materials. While greener alternatives exist for many commonly used lab items, the adoption of pro-environmental purchasing behaviors is influenced by a range of factors. By reducing the embodied carbon in purchased goods through sustainable procurement practices, Stanford labs can contribute to minimizing their environmental impact while maintaining excellence in research and innovation.
The researchers planned to bridge the gap between research advancement in chemistry labs and sustainable purchasing by achieving the following objectives
The researchers interviewed over 20 individuals, including master’s and PhD students, principal investigators, and lab procurers, and reached out to over 600 pipette purchasers to promote the switch from plastic to recycled pipette tips and tubes. A key challenge identified is the difficulty of changing a culture where many experiments depend on existing materials, making it akin to asking a baker to replace all-purpose flour with almond flour—resulting in a product that isn’t the same.
However, while it may be challenging to change ongoing experiments, we have the potential to influence future research by integrating sustainable practices into lab training modules for new graduate and PhD students at Stanford.
This project offers the opportunity to transform how experiments are conducted at Stanford and educate the next generation of researchers. By replacing DCM and chloroform with 2MeTHF, we could reduce emissions by 17.5 MTCO2e/year, equivalent to 44,862 miles driven, and switching to recycled pipettes could save 26 pounds of crude oil per case. It is important to understand the priorities of different labs—some may focus on sustainability, others on medical breakthroughs. The success of a project like this depends on diverse connections across the campus.
The Responsible Purchasing Program and the Office of Sustainability are working to partner with teaching labs to introduce greener alternatives into in-class experiments, as well as integrating updated sustainable purchasing content for labs into the Responsible Purchasing Guidelines and safety training offered by the National Institutes of Health.
PRIMARY PARTNER: Office of the Vice President for Business Affairs and Chief Financial Officer
COLLABORATING PARTNERS: Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, Stanford Zero Waste
Elanna Mak (she/her) is B.S. candidate studying Data Science and Symbolic Systems. Having partnered with organizations like CNN and Feeding Hong Kong to advocate for sustainable food and agriculture, she is curious about the intersection between numbers and sustainability. She is passionate about alleviating the poverty that comes with climate change and applying optimization strategies to create not only data-driven but also economical emissions mitigation solutions. As a Living Lab Fellow, Elanna will be working with Stanford Business Affairs to analyze how Stanford University can develop an effective supplier-engagement program to reduce scope 3 emissions. She hopes to lay the groundwork not only for Stanford to significantly reduce its purchase-related carbon footprint but also foster a practical and tenable buyer-supplier framework that other institutions can model and benefit from. Outside of the classroom, Elanna enjoys watching Disney movies, playing the violin, and emphatic karaoke-ing.
From reducing embodied carbon in construction to piloting organic landscape management, the annual Student Sustainability Symposium highlighted how student-led innovation is driving sustainability at Stanford.
The Responsible Purchasing Department hosted an information session to inform the Stanford community about how everyday purchasing choices — like reusing, sourcing locally, and slowing shipping — can drive big sustainability impacts.
On April 18th, the Stanford community gathered for the student-run Aspen Spring Sustainability Festival and Big Swap.
