The registration for the 2020 Freezer Challenge is now open!

Sign-up this year to win for the third year in a row!

Signing up is easy and only takes 2-3 minutes to enter the labs contacts and organization information.

If you would like help signing up, send Your Name (first, last), email, PI’s name, Building and Department, with subject “Please Sign-Up” to: mbarone2@illinois.edu

The challenge takes place throughout the spring semester and participation is self-explanatory, each lab gets points for actions taken to increase lab energy efficiency (see Score Sheet for categories). I will be in contact with all the labs that sign up to support your efforts throughout the semester. The labs with the most points in each laboratory category win the challenge.

Our participation in the North American Laboratory Freezer Challenge supports our Climate Leadership Commitments, campus sustainability, Green Labs, and the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP).

If you are no longer the contact for your lab and you have a different contact that I can replace yours with, please let me know!

Questions can be sent to:
Madeline Barone, email: mbarone2@illinois.edu
University of Illinois F&S | Freezer Challenge Site Coordinator
Eco-Olympics | President

The University has been recognized for winning the Freezer challenge for a second year in a row, in the magazine Nature. Click the link to go to the site!  https://www.nature.com/articles/d42473-019-00288-0

A cool competition for sustainable labs

Laboratory refrigeration requires a surprising amount of energy. Since 2017, the International Laboratory Freezer Challenge has pushed labs to reduce their draw.

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Inefficient freezers waste energy and money.Credit: Cavan Images/ Alamy

For scientists, a good freezer is like a good colleague: integral to doing your best work. But cooling comes at a great cost. Ultra-low temperature freezers, which usually store samples at –80°C, can use as much energy as an average household, and more as they get older. Multiplied by hundreds of thousands of units in labs around the world, that humble lab freezer has quite an energy footprint.

In 2017, My Green Lab and the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) created the International Laboratory Freezer Challenge* to inspire labs around the world to reduce energy used for cold storage, from refrigerators to the coldest freezers. Individual labs or organizations complete a scorecard detailing the implementation of best practices and energy-saving processes: good management practices, including defrosting freezers; temperature tuning, such as setting a freezer at –70°C or higher; retiring unused refrigerators/freezers or replacing them with more efficient ones; and some unexpected improvements, such as storing certain samples at room temperature.

Labs receive points for every action that they take. In four categories, academia, the biopharma industry, hospitals and government/non-profit, individual labs and organizations that accumulate the most points win. There can be eight winners, all of whom receive an award and recognition in Nature. This year, awards were given to labs and organizations in three of the four categories.

“The number of participating labs in 2019 nearly doubled from 2018,” says Allison Paradise, CEO and founder at My Green Lab, bringing the number of entrants worldwide to about 400 this year.

Organizational winners

 

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign winning team Credit: University of Illinois

In a repeat of 2018, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, took the top spot among academic organizations by saving about 160,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year. To win as a university, Madeline Barone, an undergraduate studying environmental science who organized the effort, made it her mission to get as many labs as possible involved. “Following up with people was super important,” she says.

Teamwork also made a big impact in the biopharma-organization category. Charles River — a global, preclincal contract research organization and headquartered in Wilmington, MA — registered all its sites around the world for the competition and encouraged them to compete against each other.

“This led to one of the most meaningful reductions in energy consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions we’ve ever seen,” Paradise says.

Winning team from Charles River

Charles River, Mattawan (MI), took the top spot. “We entered to see where we stood in relation to industry standards,” says neurobehavioral scientist, Rachel Tapp. The team ended up learning a lot. “Our sustainability crew is new within our Charles River site,” Tapp explains. “So, we learned much about who manages these systems and how they were managed.” Charles River, Mattawan saved about 423,000 kWh a year.

Rounding out the organizational winners, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earned a threepeat in the government/non-profit category. Even after wins in 2017 and 2018, the CDC added an estimated saving of 300,000 kWh a year.

Individual winners

Among individual laboratory winners, the Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s Tissue Bank at Imperial College London took the top academic spot. To do that, says tissue bank manager George Gveric, “We increased the temperatures on all our freezers and rearranged samples so that freezers are opened less frequently.”

Winning team at Imperial college London

The top honor in the biopharma industry category for an individual lab went to Amyris Biology/Automated Strain Engineering Lab. The start-up is based in Emeryville, CA. Senior associate scientist, Gloria Sagala calls the Freezer Challenge “a great opportunity for our team to come together around a common goal to improve our energy efficiency with our cold storage.” Sagala and her colleagues removed inefficient and unnecessary freezers and implemented a system to track defrosting, saving the lab 30–40% in freezer energy.

Amyris Biology/Automated Strain Engineering Lab winning team Credit: Amyris Biology/Automated Strain Engineering Lab

An individual lab winner in 2018, the Inorganic and Radiation Analytical Toxicology Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) teamed up with the Clinical Chemistry Branch to take the individual government/non-profit lab category. “We keep entering because we keep trying to increase awareness of energy use for cold storage in our division,” says Deanna Jones, a team leader in the CDC’s Division of Laboratory Sciences. When asked about the biggest change this year, Jones says, “We have begun buying ENERGY STAR-rated freezers to replace old, less energy efficient ones.”

CDC winning teamCredit: CDC

Overall, the combined efforts of participants in 2019 saved about 2.4 million kWh a year. That’s enough energy to power more than 230 average American homes for a year.** Freezer Challenge organizers hope to see that number double again in 2020.

Organizational honorable mention:

• Charles River Laboratories, Leiden

• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• US. National Institutes of Health

Individual-laboratory honorable mention:

• Janssen Immunology Biology Lab at La Jolla, CA, led by Steven Nguyen

• Laboratory Research & Reference Branch, Division of STD Prevention, CDC

• Ming Lab, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, managed by Julie Nguyen

 

*The Freezer Challenge is made possible through the generous support of sponsors, including 2019’s Gold Sponsors Eppendorf and PHCbi.

Click here to see this online       A monthly e-newsletter where Chancellor Robert Jones shares campus news, stories, successes and information Welcome Back I hope you'll take a moment to watch this short video welcoming students to campus. I am grateful to each one of you for making this a special place to live, learn and work. No matter how long you’ve been part of the Illinois community, there is always something new to discover. I look forward to seeing what we will accomplish together.  Sincerely, Robert J. Jones Chancellor Celebrate Homecoming It's time to come home, Illini. Illinois Homecoming will take place Oct. 13-19. From pancakes at the Homecoming 5K to family fun in Grange Grove, don’t miss out on all our community has to offer.  For the full list of events, view the homecoming website and the Facebook event. Congratulate Students Illinois students are outstanding. For the spring 2019 semester, the university announced: - 7,240 Dean’s List students - 243 Bronze Tablet honorees - 9,068 May graduates For the complete list of names, view this list. Rediscover TailGREAT The 1980s tailgating competition is returning to Illinois after a 30-year hiatus.  TailGREAT will take place on Saturday, Sept. 21 when the Illini take on Nebraska at Memorial Stadium. The competition will award the Best BBQ and Most Creative Tailgate. Celebrate Our Community Illinois was ranked #20 on the list of Best Colleges for your Money by Money magazine. Champaign-Urbana was named one of the Top 40 places young people are moving to by USA Today. Illinois received first place in the International Laboratory Freezer Challenge’s Academic category for the second year in a row. Learn About University News Application opens - The Illinois application for freshmen and transfer students opens Sept. 1. Scholar endowment - A University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign endowment to honor scholar Yingying Zhang has been established by the Zhang family. Yingying's Fund will assist international students in crisis and their families. Student Success - A new Student Success Initiative aims to better understand the factors that lead to retention, graduation rates, placement, degree-completion time and more. Discover Illinois Research Better sleep - Optimistic people tend to sleep better and longer, according to a new Illinois study. Cheaper flight costs - Illinois researchers are using artificial intelligence to design a customized pricing model that benefits airline customers. Healthier diets in children - An Illinois study provides more evidence that kids who cook have healthier dietary habits. Safer K-9s - A new Illinois effort will ensure law enforcement K-9s get the specialized care they need when injured on the job. Unsubscribe from Illinois Noteworthy         OFFICE OF THE CHANCELLOR 500 Swanlund Administration Building, 601 East John Street, Champaign IL 61820 chancellor.illinois.edu

Here are the winners for the 2018 ECIP Awards!

 

Occupant Action	% Improvement	Incentive Award
1. Turner Hall	21.8%	$103,130
2. Art and Design Building	19.9%	$37,816
3. Burrill Hall	19.8%	$57,518
Energy Advancement	% Improvement	Incentive Award
1. Coordinated Science Laboratory	47.2%	$84,308
2. Seitz Materials Research Laboratory	44.4%	$91,537
3. Loomis Laboratory of Physics	40.7%	$25,717
4. Harker Hall	38.0%	$10,000

This Pollinator Map is provided through the support of the University of Illinois Bee Campus USA Committee. It is intended to identify areas on campus that support our local and migratory pollinator populations. This information supports campus master planning.