The Green team here at the Quadram Institute is a group of dedicated staff and students who champion and implement environmentally friendly actions to ensure our workplace is sustainable now and in the future.

Celebrating success: bronze and silver Green Impact awards

Since 2022, the team has been part of the Green Impact scheme, a recognised programme that helps organisations record, evidence and track sustainable actions. This encourages positive behaviour change by taking accessible but meaningful steps towards sustainability.

The team achieved the bronze award in 2023 and received the silver award last year. This is a great success and testimony to the team’s hard work.

Small green actions can have the biggest impact

To achieve the bronze award the team focused on reducing waste, saving energy and improving biodiversity around the institute.

For the silver award, the team ensured these positive steps were maintained and expanded. This can be more difficult than implementing the actions in the first place. “Sustainability is all about creating a positive workplace culture around environmentally friendly actions,” says Dr Manu Crost, Green team member.

New initiatives as part of the silver award include a textbook recycling scheme, with the help of Simply Textbook. Academic textbooks are large and expensive books that accumulate with time and can contribute to landfill. Our Green team is ensuring textbooks from the Quadram Institute, and the wider Norwich Bioscience Institutes Partnership, get a new lease of life. 110 textbooks have been recycled so far.

The team also increased the temperature of Ultra Low Temperature freezers from -80°C to -70°C. These freezers store biological samples critical for research and use large amounts of energy.

Recent evidence suggests that a 10°C increase in the temperature of these freezers can reduce energy consumption and costs without compromising sample storage and viability. A change in the use of important equipment in the lab might seem small but is often the most effective. This simple temperature change could reduce energy consumption by 25-30%.

The team is incorporating sustainability in decision making. Sustainability and energy efficiency are key criteria when purchasing heavily used lab equipment such as autoclaves. Autoclaves are machines that use steam to kill off microbes from equipment and energy-saving settings are important.

Tree planting, hedgehog houses and wildflower seeding

Taking environmentally friendly steps can also be fun. In April, the team hosted a fun, family-friendly event to place hedgehog houses around the institute. Dave, founder of charity SOS Hedgehogs, built the houses which we hope will encourage the spiky mammals to find safe retreat around the institute.

Hedgehogs are in decline due to loss of habitats so it’s key we do our bit to ensure the greenery around the institute can be a suitable habitat. Head of External Relations and Engagement, Andrew Stronach, joined the event as Hedgehog Champion. This initiative, run by Hedgehog Street, encourages individuals to spread the word on how to best help hedgehogs.

At the event, volunteers and family members planted wildflowers too. Growing a variety of plants around the institute helps boost biodiversity and the wellbeing of those visiting the site.

Our Green team celebrated their success along with the success of other green teams across the Norwich Research Park, who also received their awards in 2024. Collaboration across the research park has been key in these achievements, enabling sharing of expertise, resources and facilities.

Dr Manu Crost also attended an oak sapling planting event in recognition of the teams’ efforts. “It was a lovely morning and I had a great time. It was a fantastic way to celebrate our achievements,” she says. The saplings were taken from an oak tree at the research park.

Turning a new LEAF

Moving ahead, the Green team are building on their sustainability work so far and joining the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF), created by UCL.

LEAF is a standard to specifically improve the sustainability and efficiency of laboratories and allows organisations to record and track actions outside of the lab, which the team are keen to include.

At the Quadram Institute, labs are key to our research. But labs are also resource and energy intensive spaces and focal areas to tackle in the journey to becoming even more environmentally friendly.

Our Green team is excited to help reduce our carbon footprint while still maintaining excellent research standards.

“It’s important we all take steps to build a better, greener future for all,” concludes Silas Triller, Green team member.