 We are pleased to introduce you to My Green Lab's new Sustainability Programs Coordinator, Jazmine Stenger-Smith! With a drive for living sustainably and a passion for science, Jazmine joins the Programs team assisting laboratories through the entire My Green Lab certification process. A lover of the outdoors, Harry Potter, and her family and friends, Jazmine grew up and resides in California. Learn more about Jazmine, her interests, and her sustainability journey below! Please tell us a little bit about yourself & your background. I was born and raised in Ridgecrest, CA; a small town in the middle of nowhere California, nestled between the Eastern Sierras and Death Valley National Park. I received my bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and minor in Molecular Biology from Colorado State University. My family has heavily influenced my aptitude for science - let the record stand that of the two Chemical Engineers (my parents) and the PhD in Inorganic Chemistry (my sister), I was the only one to receive an A in Organic Chemistry. After I graduated, I set off to expand my skillsets; first I became a Science educator at the High School I attended, then a QC Technician for Abbott, and finally landed an R&D Scientist position with ThermoFisher Scientific. During my time at ThermoFisher Scientific, my lab went through the My Green Lab certification process (receiving a PLATINUM score!) which ultimately led me to becoming part of the My Green Lab team.  What is your role at My Green Lab? My role and responsibilities as a Sustainability Programs Coordinator for the Programs Team is aiding laboratories through the entire My Green Lab certification process. I lean heavily on my experience as a scientist that went through this process and understand the challenges and triumphs of getting certified. What inspires you to do the kind of work you do? My inspiration mainly comes from my family and friends but also my lab and volunteering experience. More specifically, my late grandma (Ma) taught me the very important life lesson of helping others because in the end, it makes for a better world. I also attribute my drive and motivation to my best friend Leah Ostermann, she was the one that encouraged me to begin my lab sustainability journey. As a scientist, I saw first-hand the mountains of waste/single use products and energy demanding equipment that were contributing to climate change which inspired me to make a difference in my lab.  What are your personal sustainability goals? I try to make or share one behavior modification every month. Some of my biggest accomplishments include setting back my air conditioner to high temps and turning off when I’m not home, reducing my plastic consumption by visiting my local refillery for cooking oils, soaps, and hair products, and thrift shopping (ask me about my thrifting finds!). I still have work to do though – composting, not rinsing dishes before using the dishwasher, and regularly shopping at my local farmers market are on my list for future changes. What are your hobbies outside of work? I spend my spare time exploring Mother Earth and her majestic places, usually accompanied by my equally adventurous family and boyfriend. This includes hiking, skiing, and exploring cities and landmarks. I frequently volunteer for the Surfrider Foundation and I have two rescue dogs, Duke and Ziva, who are my outdoor accountabilibuddies that make me move my body every day. Most recently, I began my yoga instructor certification voyage and hope to finish my course by the end of the year!  What are your favorite books / movies?
Harry Potter, hands down, is favorite book and movie series. The Order of the Phoenix is my favorite book and Prison of Azkaban is my favorite movie. Where do you call home? This is a tricky question because I’m at a fork on my path of life. I currently live in Carlsbad, CA but would call Ridgecrest, CA home (although my parents just sold my childhood home, so I'm in this weird limbo). I will be moving to Ventura, CA to live with my boyfriend in the next few months – so maybe the short answer is I’m a nomad looking for a place to grow my roots! 2022 has been an incredible year of progress and growth for My Green Lab and the global green lab community. From breaking new program milestones to hosting and attending powerful and inspiring events, our team and the green lab community continue to grow and advance our shared mission of building a global culture of sustainability in science around the world. Recognizing that we have much farther to go, the end of the year is a great time to take a step back and reflect on how far we have come in one short year. Thank you to all the My Green Lab Community and our stakeholders, forward-thinking sponsors, partners, and collaborators for helping make our vision a reality: that all science is conducted in a way that benefits the health and wellbeing of the planet. Top 10 Breakthroughs from 2022 1) At the time of writing, over 1,300 labs have engaged with our flagship My Green Lab Certification program from over 220 institutions in over 40 countries. Labs from organizations large and small from industry and academia continue to join the program. The impact of this program continues to scale around the globe.  2) My Green Lab extended its partnership with the UN High Level Climate Champions and released an updated version of our Carbon Impact of Biotech and Pharma report at COP 27. Among the findings are that the largest companies by revenue are beginning to reduce emissions year on year, and nearly 46% of the medtech and pharmaceutical sector has committed to the global Race to Zero, one of the highest commitment percentages of any industry sector. Further, the industry has made rapid progress on the breakthrough outcome goal of 95% of labs certified at the highest level by 2030 –53% of companies have now joined the Race to Zero with 25% at a global scale.  3) As our programs grow, they also need to continue to evolve to represent the state of best practice in the industry. To develop the next version of the My Green Lab Certification, we have assembled an incredibly talented group of green lab leaders around the world to begin a revision and update process of the My Green Lab Certification.  4) You can’t have green labs without green lab products. This year, we were thrilled to see the expansion of the ACT Label Program which grew to 2,500 labels from 17 companies live on the database, with many more in the pipeline. My Green Lab currently has an additional 24 companies in the ACT Label pipeline with many new product categories under review, for a total of 3,300 labels.  5) All of our work would not be possible without the support of forward thinking and innovative Sponsors. My Green Lab now has over 40 Sponsors that are true partners in driving forward our mission. We are also very excited to announce our first Angel level sponsor, Agilent Technologies. “Sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards are central to our mission to advance the quality of life, and our sponsorship of My Green Lab helps us to drive this forward,” said Darlene Solomon, senior vice president, and chief technology officer at Agilent. “Being an ‘Angel’ level sponsor will further cultivate our knowledge of creating sustainable green labs, which we can share with our customers globally and support them on their sustainability journey.”  6) One of the core tenants of the My Green Lab strategy is to broadcast our message to the scientific community. In 2022 alone, My Green Lab attended more than 80 events both online and in person. In addition to the incredible opportunity to share our mission with the world, we were able to connect and re-connect with our incredible global community. My Green Lab also hosted our own My Green Lab Summit (now available online for free) that garnered over 500 attendees.  7) The Green Lab movement is now touching nearly every corner of the Globe. This year our My Green Lab Ambassador program surpassed 3,000 ambassadors in 59 countries.  8) None of this would be possible with the support and partnership of the incredible team we’ve assembled at My Green Lab. As the movement has grown, so has our team. We have gone from 8 to 16 full time team members, adding positions on the programs team, marketing, and business development in 2022.  9) Our passionate team had the great opportunity to gather in San Diego for our annual retreat. As a team, we reflected on our goals and set forth a new strategic vision for the next year of the organization. We agreed to focus on impact and collaboration with our community, and committed to working together as a high-performance team. We also had a lot of fun!  10) Ultimately, achieving our long-term vision will require not only a powerful movement, but a systemic shift in how research is funded and researchers are incentivized. That is why My Green Lab, in partnership with the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL), launched the Million Advocates for Sustainable Science, a global grass roots campaign to inspire funders to embed sustainability in scientific research. Sign the letter now to help us build a future of sustainable science. Thank you to our community, our sponsors, and everyone who has helped champion the growth of sustainability in science. We celebrate the great progress we've made in 2022, and look forward to the continued work we will collectively achieve in building a global culture of sustainability in 2023. In gratitude, James Connelly Chief Executive Officer, My Green Lab  We are pleased to introduce you to My Green Lab's new Sustainability Program Manager, IlaSri Bharati Summitt! IlaSri joins team My Green Lab with a true passion for sustainability and a 15+ year career working in laboratories. An avid traveler with a love for art and science, IlaSri grew up in Toronto and North Carolina, and currently resides in San Diego. Learn more about IlaSri, her interests, and her sustainability journey below! Please tell us a little bit about yourself & your background. My name is IlaSri Bharati Summitt, but you can call me “Ila”. I’ve had 15+ years in government, academic, and biotech laboratories from the east coast to west culminating in California. Prior to My Green Lab, I worked with Novartis’ global Environmental Sustainability network to execute sustainable practices at my worksite. As Chair of the Green Team, I partnered with local organizations to collect thousands of pounds of waste in beach clean ups and hazardous/e-waste collection events, implementing polystyrene recycling, donation of unused office products to local charities, and more. What is your role at My Green Lab? I’m the Sustainability Program Manager - primarily supporting labs around the world through the My Green Lab Certification process and sharing best sustainable practices. I enjoy collaborating on new ways to create a change in mindset to challenge the status quo in your group that can improve your work AND conditions around the planet. What inspires you to do the kind of work you do? I grew up in an incredibly environmentally-conscious family and community, so sustainability is always on the forefront of my mind. I grew up wanting to be an environmental scientist of some sort but ended up more on the clinical trials side. Being on the bench really showed me just how much waste the scientific community produces, without much thought at times. I’m really excited to expand on my environmental sustainability passions to now being able to focus that energy and helping labs around the world.  What are your personal sustainability goals? I’ve witnessed the effects of climate change in my lifetime, even in the last 20 years in my current hometown of San Diego. Our droughts are more severe, our winds are stronger and carry new pollens, our wildfires are more ferocious. It affects my everyday, as I have a small child who is severely asthmatic, so we check the air quality daily. The scientific community is just one part of the global problem we are tackling so I would ultimately love to see the planet reach the goals set forth by the UN’s Race to Zero, which not only focuses on decarbonized economy, but also creating more resilient economies with social justice for all. What are your hobbies outside of work? I love art of all kinds and all mediums! Art and science are everywhere, and the combination is magical. I also love gardening though I don’t have much to show for it! I am the proud owner of a few hundred worms that compost my family’s green waste. I also love traveling (35+ countries so far) though I must admit that my passport expired for the first time ever during the pandemic!  What are your favorite books / movies? I’m the proud owner all National Geographic magazines that date back to 1969 under the same subscription that my father started! Other than those, I prefer audiobooks and podcasts so that I can close my eyes and let my imagine go more fully. I love a good horror movie from the classics to whatever is current. Where do you call home? My parents immigrated from New Delhi, India to Toronto, Canada where I spent most of my childhood, until moving to North Carolina. I also lived in Baltimore and Utah, before moving to San Diego for graduate school and then staying! I feel a connection to all of the places mentioned above but San Diego is definitely home as it’s hard to leave this sunny weather!   A study by My Green Lab in partnership ICE (which acquired Urgentem) found that more companies than ever in the biotech and pharma industry are adopting zero carbon goals and joining the UN Race to Zero. The study, released at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27, on November 10th, 2022, shows that 46% of the sector by revenue has committed to the Race to Zero, up from 31% at this time last year. Progress towards the 2030 Breakthrough Outcome, a key measure of progress towards a zero carbon future, has also been swift, with over 53% of companies in the campaign starting a My Green Lab Certification, 23% at a global scale.
About the Study The report is an update to My Green Lab's 2021 report, which quantified Scope 1 and 2 as well as Scope 3 emissions across the industry’s entire value chain. The updated report tracks the industry’s progress since 2015 and evaluates alignment with achieving the Paris Climate Agreement. It leverages data from 231 publicly listed companies and 151 privately held companies and compares that profile to other industry sectors. While the positive trend in commitment to science-based targets is encouraging, the study also highlights the industry’s need for more ambitious targets and increased action. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are significant contributors to climate change, with higher emissions than the forestry and paper industry, widely regarded as one of the most carbon-intensive industries. The study revealed that 91% of biotech and pharma companies do not have carbon reduction targets aligned with aligned with a 1.5˚C warming scenario, the emission targets that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UNFCCC) estimates will avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Also revealed in the study is the total carbon impact of public companies in the industry sector, which increased 15% to 227 million tCO2-e, or metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Adding in private companies increases the total another 15%, with the total carbon impact of the industry equaling 260 million tCO2-e. “While it is encouraging to see the leading companies in the biotech and pharma industry starting to drive year on year reductions – we need to get the entire industry engaged, and we need to rapidly scale up our efforts if the industry is going to be part of the climate solution,” says James Connelly, CEO of My Green Lab. “We need every company in the industry to join the Race to Zero campaign and take rapid, measurable actions to drive down emissions. While progress towards the Breakthrough Outcome goal of 95% of labs achieving My Green Lab Certification is encouraging and a key leading indicator of transformation, we need to move faster,” Connelly continues. Although the fast-growing global biotech and pharmaceutical industry is a significant contributor to climate change, the industry’s largest companies are demonstrating leadership in emissions reductions. Highlighted in the report is the industry’s move to implement green lab programs, which provide a roadmap of practical opportunities for companies, scientists, and their suppliers to reduce the environmental impact of laboratories. “Pharmaceutical companies have a pivotal role to play in decarbonizing healthcare. We’re proud to be partnering with My Green Lab, the global standard for laboratory sustainability, to accelerate climate action across our organization,” says Juliette White, Vice-President, Global Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) and Sustainability, AstraZeneca. “Through our science-based Ambition Zero Carbon targets, we are on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our global operations and fleet by 98% by 2026 and have already achieved My Green Lab Certification in over 68 labs worldwide, engaging with over 1,700 scientists,” White continues. My Green Lab Certification focuses on reducing emissions for Scope 1 and 2 by making laboratory operations more sustainable. It further helps catalyze Scope 3 reductions by encouraging sustainable purchasing within organizations and with laboratories that a company contracts within its supply chain. It was selected as a Race to Zero Breakthrough Outcome to help pharmaceutical and medical tech companies achieve the goal of a zero-carbon world by 2050. MGL Ambassador Spotlight: Tallulah Davey is Passionate About Conservation and Sustainability10/12/2022
 Say hello to Tallulah Davey, Research Assistant in the Marine Ecology Lab at Trinity College Dublin and a My Green Lab Ambassador! Tallulah has had a passion for nature conservation from a young age and is a champion of laboratory sustainability. She obtained her degree in Zoology from Trinity College Dublin and has been recognized as a Climate Ambassador with An Taisce - The National Trust for Ireland. Tallulah is dedicated to spreading awareness and promoting green alternatives in order to create collective, positive change. "I aim to promote implementing a green perspective at the forefront of research, and to continue familiarizing myself with green alternatives, so that the most sustainable path becomes second nature," says Tallulah. Read on to learn more about Tallulah and her sustainability journey below! Please tell us a bit about yourself - where you’re from, your background, your career, etc. I’m Tallulah, and I am a marine scientist and sustainability enthusiast born in Australia, and raised in my hometown in Dublin, Ireland. I have been passionate about marine life and nature conservation since I can remember, when I first went snorkeling in my mother’s hometown in the Tropics. Living in Ireland, I have developed a strong appreciation of nature, and hope to channel this to contribute towards nature preservation for future generations. Throughout my undergraduate degree in Zoology at Trinity College Dublin, I developed a passion for biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation, which I enjoy dedicating my time to focus on. I find inspiration in community and am involved in local projects with grassroots climate groups, such as on lab sustainability and wildlife conservation, and am delighted to have been recognized as a Climate Ambassador with An Taisce, The National Trust for Ireland. Since 2020, I have been working as a Research Assistant in the Marine Ecology Lab at Trinity College as part of Prof. Nessa O’Connor’s group, where my research focuses on the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems and in how seaweeds may mitigate these effects. My main roles include research, resource management, lab coordination, procurement, and student supervision, and I aim to incorporate sustainability into every aspect of the role as a My Green Lab Ambassador. Our lab group has been working hard in the Zoology Department to become Green Lab Certified with My Green Lab by the end of 2022.  Conducting research in kelp forests in Co. Galway, Ireland What drives you to be more sustainable in the laboratory? Working in the lab daily, I became aware of the environmental impact labs can have over time, and scaling this up to the University level it quickly becomes apparent how large of a footprint this can have overall. Much of the research in my lab group is dedicated to understanding the implications of climate change in the marine environment, and as climate change mitigation is at the forefront of our research, this provides great motivation to adopt sustainable practices and reflect this in our daily lab practices, too. There has been a movement in recent years led by students and staff at Trinity College Dublin to enhance lab sustainability on campus. The TCD Green Labs committee provide great inspiration and support through shared experiences on how to tackle problems such as plastic waste, water management, energy consumption, and procurement, including the development of a Trinity Green Labs Guide to encourage as many labs to get involved. Joining this community of green labs has been highly motivating to achieve meaningful change. As a marine ecology lab, much of what we do does not fall into the category of other labs, for example, that are resource heavy in plastic (pipette tips, gloves) or chemicals. Instead, we focus on the impact of our lab experiments that are run in indoor seawater tanks, energy-use, and fieldwork. Some initiatives we have been implementing include waste reduction, monitoring and reducing our water and energy consumption while running experiments, managing our lab inventory to avoid unnecessary resource consumption, and in purchasing equipment through suppliers committed to sustainable criteria. We aim to spread awareness and share a roadmap for similar labs in the Natural Sciences throughout our journey to green lab certification, as we hope this may inspire others to do the same. Our lab group are driven and enthusiastic to reach our goal for green certification with My Green Lab by the end of the year.  The O’Connor Marine Ecology Lab, Trinity College Dublin What is the most interesting thing you learned while becoming a My Green Lab Ambassador? While becoming a My Green Lab Ambassador, the most interesting thing I learned is how implementing small changes over time in the lab can lead to having a huge, positive impact. The program equipped me with a great deal of knowledge on the extent to which labs contribute to the climate crisis, and notably, how much of this can be avoided through having open conversations and encouraging behavioral change. For example, I was surprised to learn of the energy requirements for cold storage, and the extent of water and energy use that can be avoided through simple adaptations. Our lab has taken this on board through implementing improvements, such as freezer maintenance and switching to -70°C, installing tap aerators, and managing our equipment to reduce energy use. I find stories of other Ambassadors inspiring and continued support from the My Green Lab Community has reminded me of the power of collective action, and how much we can achieve when working as a community. How has the My Green Lab Ambassador Program enriched your sustainability journey? My sustainability journey has been enriched by the depth of information, resources, and support available through the My Green Lab Ambassador Program to encourage systems change. The benefits of being part of this program stretch beyond the workplace. In creating a culture of lab sustainability, I found the program to empower behaviour change and has encouraged me to promote involvement in sustainability in my local community, with family and with friends. What are your personal sustainability goals? I aim to promote implementing a green perspective at the forefront of research, and to continue familiarizing myself with green alternatives, so that the most sustainable path becomes second nature. I look forward to becoming certified with My Green Lab with my coworkers from the O’Connor Marine Ecology Lab at Trinity College Dublin, and encouraging as many others as possible to get involved in implementing green labs practices. I hope to initiate lab sustainability conversations that are empowering and hopeful discussions, and I look forward to using this opportunity as a My Green Lab Ambassador to create collective, positive change. Ready to become a My Green Lab Ambassador? Sign up today!
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