Strong commitment to SDU Green Lab

The University of Southern Denmark received the prestigious sustainability certification from My Green Lab in 2021 because, among other things, the participating laboratories significantly reduced energy consumption. They were the first laboratories in Denmark and the first university laboratory in the Nordic region to receive such certification.

Since then, SDU has had many more laboratories certified, and at the time of writing, they are about halfway through all the university's facilities.
This pleases Marianne Due, who is the project manager for the sustainable efforts towards the laboratories. She sees it as proof that SDU has embraced the ongoing efforts to optimise the sustainability of the university's facilities.

- When you roll out a project in a place as big as the university, you're always curious about how it will be received. But our doubts were put to rest, because there is so much interest in the SDU Green Lab that there is a waiting list to be certified. In addition, the research areas of research are very active in finding optimisation opportunities in collaboration with the university's Central Administration, such as the procurement department and Technical Services, she says and continues.

- It's impressive that there is so much willingness to work together to find and implement sustainable optimisations. By collaborating across the organisation, we achieve more holistic solutions that are also easier to implement, which in itself is a sustainable use of resources and time, explains Marianne Due.

An effort that benefits both the environment and SDU

University laboratories often have a very high consumption of energy and other resources, and it has been shown that there are many areas for improvement that can provide value on many levels, from the laboratory equipment to the daily habits of the employees.

Teis Lentz, energy consultant and coordinator in the university's Technical Services, explains:

- It's been a very educational process for me to be a part of. Among other things, we've learned that it's primarily behaviour that can help us make big savings and not always the technical solutions we expected.

- We have organised many workshops and had several of the laboratories at SDU certified. The best thing has been that it has always been the participants who have identified and implemented the sustainable initiatives and solutions. I have only experienced great willingness and desire to change things for the better, he says.

Concrete example from the workshop

One of the places where improvements have been made is with Klaus Lehn Petersen, assistant engineer at the Faculty of Science. "They have both seen concrete energy-saving results and it has been a good process to work closely together on common goals.

- For example, we focused on the temperature in some of the laboratories' freezers, where we realised that we could save up to 25% on electricity consumption by raising the temperature a little bit. Another lesson learnt was that some of our old appliances actually perform better than some newer alternatives, so it really pays to repair rather than buy new.

He describes himself as a kind of Georg Gearless at the department, fixing broken equipment. And collaborates with the lab staff on the best solutions. He explains that the certification work has led to a great recognition of his and his colleagues' work.

- There are a lot of people out here who have started thinking along sustainable lines, and there is a healthy and natural awareness of optimising the laboratory facilities and the importance of our work - so we're really happy about that, he says.

A certification from bronze to green

A Green Lab certification consists of five steps, moving from level 1 to 5, from bronze to green. The certification and the level on the sustainability scale is determined by the percentage of green lab standards implemented in the laboratory.

Half of the certified laboratories at SDU have achieved the highest score as 'green'