Building a Greener Lab
Reimagining Sustainability in the DNA Lab
Tara Luther, Senior Marketing Specialist, Genetic Identity Digital & Social Media, Promega Corp., Madison, WI, USA
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This article was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence. However, all content has been thoroughly reviewed and curated by a human editor before posting to guarantee accuracy, relevance, and quality.
In any forensic or research lab, sustainability can feel like a contradiction. You sort your plastics for recycling—only to find out they’re headed to landfill. You receive a single reagent in a box large enough for a microscope. The foam coolers and ice packs pile up faster than you can find anyone to take them.
Most scientists don’t need to be convinced that sustainable science matters. They’re already trying—reusing tip boxes, batching orders, skipping unnecessary prints. But the reality is, it’s hard to run a low-waste lab when the system around you wasn’t built for it.
The question isn’t whether labs want to do better. It’s how.
How do we cut emissions without compromising product stability? How do we support rigorous science while reducing waste? How do we protect human health without harming the ecosystems we all depend on?
It turns out that the answers may not start in the lab at all—but upstream, in the design of products, packaging, facilities, and logistics.
Reframing Sustainability as a Scientific Standard
Forensic labs are under constant pressure to do more with less: fewer staff, tighter budgets, bigger backlogs. So sustainability can feel like one more thing on an already full plate. But when it’s done well, it becomes less about additional effort—and more about smarter systems.
Sustainability in life science should reduce stress, not add to it. It should mean fewer resupply delays, not more. It should mean streamlined kits, not excess packaging. And it should mean long-term resiliency—for labs, for communities, and for the environments where we live and work.
To get there, suppliers have a role to play.
Promega, like many in the life sciences, has started building environmental responsibility into the foundation of its operations—not just as a company value, but as a way to support the scientific community.
Their sustainability efforts aren’t framed as “greening the brand”—but as clearing the path so that labs can reduce their own footprint without sacrificing performance.
“One of the hardest things for people to wrap their heads around tends to be the idea that small wins add up to big victories,” said Mauro Ciglic, General Manager of Promega Switzerland. “But if we want to make a big difference for the future of our planet and its people, we have to overcome our indifference toward small things in life” (Diarra dit Konté, 2022).
What Sustainability Looks like (When It's Built In)
So what does a truly sustainable life science company look like from the inside out?
It doesn’t just mean switching to LED bulbs or adding recycling bins. It means rethinking infrastructure, retooling logistics, and redesigning the materials scientists interact with every day.
“Promega is guided by a long-term view—thinking in quarter centuries rather than quarters,” writes CEO Bill Linton in the company’s 2025 Corporate Responsibility Report. “This perspective guides how we innovate, care for our people and steward the planet”.
That quarter-century mindset has led to a slate of concrete sustainability wins—many of which fly under the radar but are quietly transforming how molecular tools are made, shipped, and used around the world.
Bill Linton, CEO Promega Corp., Madison, WI, USA
Kit Packaging That Reduces More Than Waste
If you’ve received a Promega kit recently, you may have noticed the difference. Boxes are more compact. Plastic is almost entirely gone. Instead of shrink wrap and foam padding, you’re more likely to find recycled paper cushioning, compostable seals, and minimal dead space.
This redesign wasn’t cosmetic—it was functional. The result?
» Over 139,000 square meters of plastic shrink wrap eliminated annually
» More than 2,800 meters of plastic tape removed from outgoing shipments
» Plastic air pillows replaced with recyclable paper alternatives
» Shipping box dimensions reduced, cutting weight, volume, and transportation emissions (Promega, 2025)
These design changes also made it easier for labs to dispose of packaging responsibly—no sorting foam from film or digging through layers of non-recyclables. That’s time and waste saved, on both ends of the supply chain.
Rethinking Cold Chain Logistics
Cold chain shipping is often necessary—but it’s also emissions-intensive. Promega’s sustainability team asked a hard question: What if it wasn’t?
As a result, stability testing protocols have been updated across product lines to identify kits that can safely ship at ambient temperatures. The GoTaq® Legionella qPCR Kit became the flagship product of this shift—designed specifically to eliminate dry ice and insulated containers from the shipping process.
Across Europe and North America, these changes have:
» Conserved more than 12 tons of dry ice annually
» Avoided more than 32 metric tons of CO₂ emissions
» Eliminated 3,000+ EPS foam coolers per year (Promega, 2025)
In cases where insulation is still needed, Promega’s European distribution centers are now testing biomass-derived EPS alternatives, closing the loop on fossil fuel-derived packaging.
Energy Efficiency That Powers Discovery
Promega’s buildings—including research, manufacturing, and administrative spaces—are designed with the same level of care as the products inside them.
The Kornberg Center in Madison, for instance, uses:
» Ground-source heat pumps for energy-efficient heating/cooling
» Double-skin façade and automated windows to regulate indoor climate naturally
» On-site solar arrays that generate clean energy for core building systems
» Rainwater capture for toilet flushing and cooling system makeup
That building alone is 65% more energy efficient than similar spaces. And it’s not an exception. Across the entire campus:
» 56% of land is preserved as green space, including 25 acres of native prairie
» Campus-wide composting and bioswales reduce water usage and runoff
» The Alan Turing Center became Promega’s first natural gas–free building (Promega, 2025)
These aren’t PR-friendly plaques on the wall—they’re functional infrastructure that allows labs to operate more sustainably from the inside out.
Cerfications That Protect Your Science—and the Planet
Promega’s Madison campus and multiple international branches are certified under ISO 14001:2015 for Environmental Management Systems, alongside ISO 9001, ISO 13485, ISO 18385,
and ISO 45001 certifications (Promega, 2025).
These standards reinforce a consistent, transparent, and science-driven approach to responsible manufacturing—benefiting both the planet and your workflows.
Empowering Labs to do the Same
Promega’s job doesn’t end when a product ships. Many of the most impactful sustainability efforts happen in partnership with the people who use those products every day: forensic scientists, geneticists, casework analysts, and lab managers.
Here are a few ways that collaboration is showing up.
The Helix® On-Site Stocking System
Helix gives labs immediate access to core products through in-lab inventory stations. That might sound like a logistical perk—but it’s also a sustainability win. With fewer emergency shipments, bulk replenishment, and less overordering, labs cut down on:
» Packaging waste
» Courier emissions
» Staff time spent managing inventory and restocking
The system is now active at over 40 sites in Switzerland alone, where it plays a central role in Promega’s Go Green with Helix® program (Promega, 2025).
Tree-Planting that Ties Action to Impact
Helix gives labs immediate access to core products through in-lab inventory stations. That might sound like a logistical perk—but it’s also a sustainability win. With fewer emergency shipments, bulk replenishment, and less overordering, labs cut down on:
» Packaging waste
» Courier emissions
» Staff time spent managing inventory and restocking
The system is now active at over 40 sites in Switzerland alone, where it plays a central role in Promega’s Go Green with Helix® program (Promega, 2025).
Celebrating Lab Sustainability
Through its Helix Sustainability Awards, Promega UK highlights institutions taking meaningful action.
In 2024, the John Innes Centre in Norwich received the Gold Award after reducing their deliveries by 1,144 consignments—a significant drop in packaging, emissions, and administrative overhead (Promega, 2025).
Promega also supports university-led sustainability efforts through lab plastic diversion programs, sponsorships, and green lab pilot certifications.
Recycling that Works Where You Work
From nitrile glove recycling (via Kimberly-Clark’s RightCycle™) to plastic film balers in their own warehouses, Promega is testing scalable recycling programs that can be replicated in customer labs (Promega, 2025).
Because when suppliers build sustainability into the supply chain itself, it removes one more barrier for labs trying to do better.
What Labs Can Do Now
Sustainability may be systemic, but change often starts local. Labs looking to reduce their footprint can:
» Rethink procurement: Combine orders. Choose ambient-stable kits. Ask vendors about shipping alternatives.
» Advocate for greener systems: Join your institution’s green team. Push for better options.
Share what’s working.
» Track what matters: Consider running internal audits. Calculate CO₂ saved by
changing procurement habits.
» Support better infrastructure: Choose suppliers who are transparent and committed to long-term change—not just carbon offsets, but actual emissions reductions.
Science, Scaled for the Long-Term
When forensic scientists talk about their work, they often mention its human impact. That each profile or match or kit processed could bring closure to a family, or answers to a long-cold case.
That same mindset—careful, long-term, community-minded—is what sustainability in ‘science requires.
No single company or lab can fix it alone. But when kit by kit, shipment by shipment, we begin to reimagine how science is delivered and performed, those small wins start to add up.
Not just to fewer boxes in the hallway or better air quality in the building—but to a scientific practice that respects the systems we rely on. Both human and environmental.
And that’s something all of us—scientists, manufacturers, and communities—can build together.
References
1. Diarra dit Konté, N. (2022, April 7). Small wins, personal commitment and concrete solutions add up to big victories in sustainability. Promega Connections. https://www.promegaconnections.com/small-wins-personal-commitment-and-concrete-solutions-add-up-to-big-victories-in-sustainability/
2. Promega Corporation. (2025). Corporate responsibility report 2025. https://www.promega.com/aboutus/ corporate-responsibility/
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