Greenest of the Green

Greenest of the Green Related Articles Feature: Can labs go green? Anatomy of a green lab Green lab slideshow List of resources The Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) rating system, established by the non-profit US Green Building Council (USGBC) is a widely accepted framework for evaluating of the greenness of any building. LEED buildings are judged on six quantifiable measures of sustainability - sustainable sites, water effici

Written byBob Grant

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Feature: Can labs go green?

Anatomy of a green lab

Green lab slideshow

List of resources

The Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) rating system, established by the non-profit US Green Building Council (USGBC) is a widely accepted framework for evaluating of the greenness of any building. LEED buildings are judged on six quantifiable measures of sustainability - sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, and innovation and design. Based on these criteria, LEED buildings are classified as certified, silver, gold, or platinum, the pinnacle of greenness. There are more than 750 buildings in the U.S. that have achieved a LEED rating, but only 18 LEED buildings are classified as "laboratories," a designation made by the project team and not USGBC.

In 2005, Labs for the 21st Century (Labs21) devised a specialized sustainability rating system for laboratories built off the LEED framework called ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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