A Grassroots Journey Towards Sustainable Science

In 2019, a study of the top-15 pharmaceutical companies over a 4-year period revealed that the pharmaceutical industry emits 48.55 tons of CO₂ for every $1 million generated, a remarkable 55% more than the automotive industry (1). Laboratories typically consume 3 to 10 times more energy than commercial spaces (2). Without intervention, the healthcare industry's CO₂ footprint is expected to triple by 2050 (3).

One way the pharmaceutical industry can reduce its environmental footprint is to opt for outsourcing partners committed to sustainability practices. The My Green Lab Certification, endorsed by the United Nations Race to Zero, is the gold standard for sustainable laboratory practices. It provides actionable steps for minimizing environmental impact in scientific research, resulting in meaningful change.

Our Elemental Analysis lab has kicked-off their sustainability journey on a mission to get My Green Lab Certified. Read what Gisela, Peter and René have to say about the inspiration behind this initiative and what lies ahead.

Could you all tell us a little bit about yourselves?

Gisela: I joined Solvias 10 years ago. I'm an analytical chemist by training, I did my PhD in ICP-MS (inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry). For my studies, I moved from Germany to Switzerland, now I'm a Swiss citizen. At Solvias, I started as the Head of Trace Element Analysis, meanwhile I headed the whole Elemental Analysis Unit encompassing all the atomic spectroscopy methods. During this time, I became an expert in testing and compliance with Pharmacopoeia, and a member in some of the expert groups of the EDQM (European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & Healthcare: heavy metals, inorganic materials, ICP working group).

René: I've been at Solvias nearly as long as Gisela, I started 3 months later, and I've been with Gisela and the ICP-MS team ever since. I started out as an ICP-MS Specialist, but now have a small development team within the larger group. I'm doing everything that’s nerdy in the group [laughs].

Peter: I'm the newest member here. I started at Solvias almost 2 years ago. I'm an organic chemist by training. After my PhD, I went into clinical chemistry leading an elemental analysis team at a medical lab in Germany. I did that for 2.5 years and then moved to Switzerland and became a team leader in routine operations in the Elemental Analysis lab at Solvias.

Gisela and René, you’ve both been at Solvias for a decade, how has the company evolved over the years?

Gisela: For one thing, it has grown a lot. The building was very new when we started here, but now it’s really filled up. But still it feels like everything and everyone is close, so that decisions for improvements can be made quickly.

René: Well, focusing on the lab level, I would say sometimes it feels as if everything stayed the same in those 10 years. But actually, looking closer, that's not true. We've come a long way. A small example is that every single process used to be paper-based. We're practically paperless in the lab, down from printing thousands of pages per week to (almost) none.

A big change we want to discuss is something you as a team have initiated, could you tell us a bit about My Green Lab?

René: My Green Lab is a non-profit organization, it was founded around the idea that laboratories are notorious for needing lots of resources in forms of energy, chemicals and so on. My Green Lab was founded on the thought "we do research, but we don't want to destroy the planet whilst doing so. Let's try to reduce the number of resources we use to however reasonably low we can."

Peter: The idea is to be more sustainable as a lab and as a company. My Green Labs is a bottom-up approach where you get all the lab people involved and make them aware about their resource consumption, to make a real change throughout the whole company.

Gisela: I think they also build on the concept that in the labs, there are scientifically interested people and scientists think perhaps more globally. They want to protect the environment. As Peter indicated, oftentimes initiatives come from planting a seed somewhere and then it spreads across the company.

What inspired your lab to embark on this sustainability journey?

Gisela: In 2022, I went to the Future Labs Live conference in Basel, I was amazed to see that there's so much going on in terms of sustainability. I really think it’s important that we become more sustainable, that we get a certification, not only for our direct impact on the planet, but also to help our customers to reach their goals with regards to sustainability.

René: Since university, I have followed along as climate science developed and became more publicly accepted. I’ve always wondered why there is such a huge gap between what's going on in people's personal life in terms of environmental awareness versus what's going on at work. After Gisela came back from the conference, we started digging a bit deeper and found My Green Lab. Since then, it's really gained momentum.

Peter: I kind of got caught up in their enthusiasm. Just like René, I did the My Green Lab Ambassador Program last year. It’s a training where you can gain a lot of information and ideas how to make your lab more sustainable - it really got me excited. I also attended Future Labs Live in 2023 and saw what other labs are doing, and then I just thought we need to push this forward in our lab.

The first step towards accreditation is an initial questionnaire, which you received a few weeks ago, are there any lessons you’ve learnt in the process so far that you can share?

René: It was cool to see that from the structure of the questionnaire, we immediately got an impression of what we’re already doing well, and in which areas we need to improve. You can see we have a lot of potential for further  improvement. As an example, we can do much more about reducing our waste. What we consider dirty lab consumables could be a resource for recycling. We use a lot of single use plastics because they’re free of heavy metals. But could we recycle them? For us they are contaminated with ultra traces of heavy metals, but for the rest of the world, they're cleaner than most of the plastic you can buy.

Peter: I really found it interesting how the questionnaire went hand in hand with our GMP requirements and our LEAN initiative. It was fascinating to see that working under very strong regulations whilst trying to get processes as efficient as possible, can also make your processes more environmentally friendly. 

You’re at the beginning of your sustainability journey, what are the next steps?

Peter: Following the questionnaire we have an evaluation chat. My Green Lab will provide us with ideas how to improve and then we will start to implement them. That's pretty much what we already know by now. There were some questions which directly indicated some opportunities for improvement. For example, we have already assigned a designated sustainability responsible in the team.  

And finally, apart from getting accredited and making the lab more sustainable, what else do you expect to achieve with this initiative, given the commitment at the executive level?

Gisela: I hope there is a mindset change. So that in the future, for every decision made at our company, people consider the sustainability aspect. What is the impact on the planet? Is this improving our process? That it becomes standard, something you just do and not have to consciously remember: if you do something every day for 30 days, it becomes routine, a habit. That is my intention.

Peter: I also hope we can spread it across the company. As soon as we have our certificate, I hope other colleagues will follow in our footsteps and get just as excited as we got.

René: Same here. I'm hoping that we can further integrate it as part of our daily business, the same way we do with quality assurance, and safety and health standards. As a bonus, work life integrates better into our everyday society and as a whole we get a lot more environmentally friendly and waste less resources while doing the stuff we do.

References

1. Lotfi Belkhir, Ahmed Elmeligi. Carbon footprint of the global pharmaceutical industry and relative impact of its major players, Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 214, 2019, Pages 185-194, ISSN 0959-6526, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.11.204.
2. Meyn SM, Ramirez-Aguilar KA, Gregory CW, Mische S, Ott AW, Sol-Church K, Sturges M, Taatjes DJ. Addressing the Environmental Impact of Science Through a More Rigorous, Reproducible, and Sustainable Conduct of Research. J Biomol Tech. 2023 Feb 28;33(4):3fc1f5fe.d085ce95. doi: 10.7171/3fc1f5fe.d085ce95. PMID: 37033093; PMCID: PMC10078834.
3. “Global Road Map for Healthcare Decarbonisation Now Available in French and Dutch.” Health Care Without Harm, October 4, 2022. https://noharm-global.org/articles/news/europe/roadmap-healthcare-decarbonisation-belgium.