In this 60-minute webinar, three speakers share their experiences and advice on how to reduce waste and emissions from the laboratory. They then answer questions from Nature’s readers.Namrata Jain speaks about espousing the merits of a green lab during her PhD programme. Jain, who now works as a marketing consultant at My Green Lab, a non-profit organization in San Diego, California, also suggests training programmes for researchers in which they can learn more about lab emissions. “There is a vast potential to improve the way science is done today and to incorporate sustainability into our lab practice,” she says.

Kathryn Ann-Ramirez Aguilar champions a more efficient use of space, reducing waste and saving costs as part of her role as a manager in the Green Labs programme at the University of Colorado Boulder. “The only item in the lab that was asking us to save resources was a sticker on the light switch,” she says of her inspiration to combat lab waste. “I thought to myself that we must be able to do more than just turn off the lights when we leave.”

Cintia Milagre, an organic chemist at São Paulo State University in Brazil, who also runs a green-lab programme, describes her experiences managing labs with reduced costs and carbon footprints. She says working in lower-resource areas often requires researchers to think more about the environmental impact of their work.

The session was held on 5 August 2021. The three participants also suggested more resources to support green-lab initiatives and took part in a live Q&A discussion about how researchers at all career stages can make efforts to reduce wastage — often saving money for their labs in the process.

It forms part of Nature Careers’ ongoing 2021 webinar programme. For information about future topics, please visit https://www.nature.com/webcasts/.