By Brian Billman and Brandon Fortier 

With U.S. lab CO2 emissions coming in at around 40 million metric tons per year, the science and technology industry is in need of benchmarking data to track emissions and begin lowering its CO2 output. The International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) is taking on the task with its new Labs2Zero program, a roadmap to decarbonize the world’s high-tech research facilities.  

Building owners and design team members are encouraged to add projects to I2SL’s Laboratory Benchmarking Tool (LBT), which currently includes over 1,000 lab projects across the world in various markets (higher ed, research and development, government). 

Once information is submitted, I2SL advisory committees review the data and anonymize it before adding it to the LBT for comparison with other labs. The project receives an energy score, based on the building’s predicted energy use intensity (EUI) and actual EUI. Later this year, labs will also receive an emissions score. 

I2SL’s LBT will help owners to understand their facility’s energy performance and encourage improved performance for new and renovated labs. While Labs2Zero was created for analyzing existing labs, I2SL also plans to launch a similar program for new facilities, called Design2Zero. 

The projects entered into the LBT will serve as models for future projects and set a benchmark for high-performing labs. IMEG will be helping our existing and new clients contribute data to the database. Learn more about the program here, and submit your lab data to the program to build out the benchmarking across the country.