Hanley Sustainability Institute

By Shane Geiger

As you may know, the University of Dayton is committed to a sustainable future. To prove that, UD has created sustainability goals. 

These goals are sectioned off into different categories, such as buildings, dining and energy. One of these goals is to establish a Green Labs Program by 2025.

Currently, 2025 is closing fast, but, as of a week ago, the University of Dayton Green Labs Program was a little more than non-existent. 

Establishing this program is on the goals list, so we need to do it. Why?

First, as a sustainably focused campus, UD needed to look into areas for improvement such as energy usage. This revealed that, of the top energy consumers on campus, most were research buildings with labs, such as Curran Place, the Science Center and Kettering Labs. These buildings provide an essential component for education and research, but consume intensive amounts of energy. This is why UD and hundreds of other universities are looking into and implementing Green Labs Programs.

Each university is different with its approach and enthusiasm, but all align in their results, meaning green lab programs save energy, water, materials and money.

The focus of a Green Labs Program is to assess a lab, identify potential areas for improvement and  implement procedures or solutions to reduce energy, water and material wastage. This change could be as complex as creating a new procedural checklist which ensures proper lab conduct and operation to reduce wasted time or as simple as placing signage over waste bins and adding recycling.  

In a chemistry or chemical lab, you might find a device called a fume hood. These devices are essential for the safe handling of certain chemicals and materials, but are infamous for their energy consumption.  In a typical single-person household, the daily average for energy consumption would be 20.11 kWh. A five-person household has a daily average of 39.55 kWh. A single fume hood has a daily energy consumption of 115 kWh, nearly four times that of a five-person household. With such extreme energy consumption, any improvement would have immense benefits.

The Energy Team at the Hanley Sustainability Institute (HSI) first assessed the potential scope of implementing a Green Labs Program at UD over the past summer in partnership with Tess Esposito in the university's Office of Energy and Sustainability. Together, we entered into the fall semester in search of a lab on campus to serve as the first Green Lab. This would in some ways be a “guinea pig” for the Green Labs Program to discover what works and what are the best procedures for implementing this program.  

Thankfully, the BAMS (Behavior of Advanced Material Structures) Lab led by Dr. Robert Lowe has eagerly agreed to be the first lab to participate in this new program. As the name suggests, this lab tests and researches the behavioral and structural properties of materials. While it does contain appliances which consume the most energy or produce the most waste, such as fume hoods, it does contain much office space and some larger machines used for testing materials.

After a meeting and a tour of the lab, we walked away with multiple ideas for the lab and the program as a whole.

For one, make it a competition. Similar to other Universities, we could create a ranking system for labs assessed and give a ranking to each lab. This could be rating a lab as gold or platinum if it meets or exceeds all requirements.

During our discussion, Dr. Lowe expressed his love for the idea and agreed how some friendly competition could draw in more students, faculty and labs alike to participate in the program. This would also provide incentive for improved behavior. Who would want to be the lowest-ranked lab on campus?

Currently, because the scale of the program is so small and the program is so young, the room for growth is exponential. As more labs agree to join and the program expands, UD can become the shining example for Green Lab standards.

The question now is just how much time and effort is the University willing to invest in this sustainability initiative?