Sustainable Lab Summit
Join the movement to advance research while protecting our planet!
Sustainability in research is an area of rising importance — labs use 5-10x more energy than office spaces and produce significant amounts of plastic and hazardous waste.
The Office of Campus Sustainability and Innovation holds an annual sustainable lab summit to bring researchers together to learn best practices, discuss potential solutions, and inspire innovation. The summits combine educational sessions, interactive panel discussions, keynote speakers, and stakeholder tabling. OSCI is looking forward to hosting the next summit series in Winter 2027!
The Inaugural 2025 Sustainable Lab Summit
The first Sustainable Lab Summit took place on Feb 4, 2025 and attracted more than 140 researchers across campus. The day-long event featured more than 20 expert presenters and a keynote address from Allison Paradise, the founder and former CEO of My Green Lab.
Download the success report to see the highlights!
The 2026 Sustainable Lab Mini-Summit Series
Following the success of the 2025 event, OCSI formed the Sustainable Research Advisory Committee to advance efforts in key sustainability areas.The group split into two first focus areas: equipment sharing and single-use plastics reduction. They developed two educational resources, the Equipment Sharing Dos and Don’ts Guide and the Ditch the Disposables” Lab Edition Guide, that were the focus of the March 24 and March 25 mini summits, respectively.
Each mini-summit included a summary of the developed guides, a keynote lecture from an expert on the topic, and a panel discussion with advisory committee members who were vital in creating the topic guides.
If you missed it, you can still see the full agenda here!
Other ways to get involved
• Join the Sustainable Research Advisory Committee
• Join the Freezer Challenge
• Complete the Sustainable Lab Certification
• Join the Sustainable Labs Newsletter
Lab Summit Tabling Sessions
Check out who was a featured tabler at the 2026 series to get an idea of who to expect next year!
Sponsors
Thank you again to our 2026 event series sponsors!”
- Office of Campus Sustainability
- Rackham Graduate School
- Office of the Vice President for Research
- Planet Blue Ambassador Program
- LSA Sustainability
- U-M Medical School
