The National Institutes of Health (NIH) developed the Green Labs Program (GLP), to increase the awareness and participation of laboratory personnel in sustainable laboratory practices, with the goal of protecting the environment and human health. The NIH GLP is an initiative of the Sustainability Management Team to recognize laboratories who choose to reduce their environmental footprint by participating in NIH environmental initiatives.
The development of the program was a one-of-a-kind, collaborative initiative, which brought together NIH Environmental Management Program (EMP) Leads and Lab Managers to lay the groundwork in developing the GLP self-assessment form.
The program attempts to make it easier for researchers to learn about environmental stewardship by providing one source of information about relevant programs, policies, regulations, and mandates within the GLP self-assessment form. Any NIH staff representing a laboratory can assess their labs commitment towards incorporating environmental initiatives in the following categories:
Energy Conservation
Freezer Management
Water Conservation
Chemical Waste
Medical Pathological
Radioactive Waste
Waste reduction
Recycling
Green Chemistry
Inventory Management
Outreach
To view the NIH GLP self-assessment statements since 2018, please click on the links below:
2023 - Bethesda & Other Locations
2023 - RML
2023 - Ft. Detrick & ATRF
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
NIH Green Labs Program Results:
2023: The 2023 NIH Green Labs Program can be viewed here. To view the 2023 NIH GLP Results Dashboard for respective locations: Rocky Mountain Labs, Montana click here; Ft. Detrick/Advanced Technology Reseach Facility, Maryland, click here; and Bethesda, Maryland; Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and other locations, click here.
2022: The 2022 NIH Green Labs Program results can be viewed here. Click here to view the 2022 NIH Green Labs Program Dashboard.
For additional information, please contact the Green Labs Program Manager, bani.bhattacharya@nih.gov.
A note of appreciation: The NIH Green Labs Program is adapted from My Green Lab, a non-profit organization that has collaborated with many universities in California including UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, UC San Francisco, and UC Los Angeles, to develop a Green Lab assessment tool. The NIH Green Labs Program was developed to fit the circumstances and priorities of NIH laboratories.