2018 Freezer Challenge Winners
Over 175 labs representing 28 organizations around the world competed in the Freezer Challenge, which encouraged researchers to implement best practices around cold storage management. Labs received points for taking actions such as properly maintaining freezers and refrigerators, discarding old samples, and retiring unneeded units. Winners were determined based on the number of points they received as well as the amount of energy they saved.
The organizational winners of the Freezer Challenge were:
The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign saved an estimated 260,000 kWh/year, the La Jolla campus of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson saved an estimated 65,000 kWh/year, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saved an estimated 140,000 kWh/year.
Honorable mention goes to Colorado State University and the University of Colorado, Boulder for their outstanding efforts.
The individual laboratory winners were:
Honorable mention in the individual lab category goes to the Hoekstra Lab from Harvard, the Sabatini Lab from MIT, and the Hoover/Mathiason Lab from Colorado State University. These labs went above and beyond in their efforts to improve cold storage management and to reduce the environmental impact of their labs.
Congratulations to all of our Freezer Challenge winners!! Together, 2018 Freezer Challenge participants saved ~1.6 million kWh/year. The energy savings realized from this Challenge are equivalent to reducing carbon emissions by ~1,200 metric tons.
All Freezer Challenge winners were honored at the I2SL conference in Raleigh on October 16, 2018. And their accomplishments were published in the October 25th edition of Nature.
The Freezer Challenge is a joint program run by My Green Lab and the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL), and was made possible through the generosity of Stirling Ultracold, Eppendorf, and Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Over 175 labs representing 28 organizations around the world competed in the Freezer Challenge, which encouraged researchers to implement best practices around cold storage management. Labs received points for taking actions such as properly maintaining freezers and refrigerators, discarding old samples, and retiring unneeded units. Winners were determined based on the number of points they received as well as the amount of energy they saved.
The organizational winners of the Freezer Challenge were:
- The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
- The La Jolla, California campus of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign saved an estimated 260,000 kWh/year, the La Jolla campus of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson saved an estimated 65,000 kWh/year, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saved an estimated 140,000 kWh/year.
Honorable mention goes to Colorado State University and the University of Colorado, Boulder for their outstanding efforts.
The individual laboratory winners were:
- The Brain Inflammation Group, Luckman Lab, and the SPB Group Labs managed by Elena Redondo at the University of Manchester
- The Janssen Immunology Biology Lab at La Jolla, California, led by Steven Nguyen, Scientist, Immunology Therapeutic Area, Janssen Research & Development LLC
- The Inorganic and Radiation Analytical Toxicology Branch from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- The Eye and Vision Biorepository at Eversight
Honorable mention in the individual lab category goes to the Hoekstra Lab from Harvard, the Sabatini Lab from MIT, and the Hoover/Mathiason Lab from Colorado State University. These labs went above and beyond in their efforts to improve cold storage management and to reduce the environmental impact of their labs.
Congratulations to all of our Freezer Challenge winners!! Together, 2018 Freezer Challenge participants saved ~1.6 million kWh/year. The energy savings realized from this Challenge are equivalent to reducing carbon emissions by ~1,200 metric tons.
All Freezer Challenge winners were honored at the I2SL conference in Raleigh on October 16, 2018. And their accomplishments were published in the October 25th edition of Nature.
The Freezer Challenge is a joint program run by My Green Lab and the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL), and was made possible through the generosity of Stirling Ultracold, Eppendorf, and Thermo Fisher Scientific.