Top 10 My Green Lab ‘Breakthroughs’ in 2022

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