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Fresh greens growing in a high-tech greenhouseIt 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.

Principal
Kathryn Ramirez-Aguilar

Funding
University of Colorado Boulder

Collaboration + support
The Environmental Center; Facilities Management; Sustainability Initiative