It takes a massive amount of energy to run the 400 or so labs at the heart of the campus research enterprise: roughly enough to power more than 5,000 homes. That’s where CU Green Labs comes in—spearheading creative solutions to reduce that impact by helping labs trim tens of thousands of kilowatt-hours of energy use and recycle thousands of pounds of lab material annually. 

Green Labs recently secured a campus grant allowing the program to hire a lab manager to oversee a new collaborative lab space serving researchers from three departments. This effort follows a Green Labs case study that found a similar shared lab already operating at CU is saving researchers $266,000 in administrative and equipment costs annually. That means more bang for the university’s research bucks.