The Freezer Challenge is hosted yearly by My Green Lab and the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) to promote energy efficiency in cold storage management, which can generate significant energy and cost savings while also supporting efficient research practices. The Freezer Challenge covers all forms of cold storage, including refrigerators, freezers and cold rooms. 

This year, 25 laboratories at UVA participated in the challenge and have won the Top Academic Organization Award for the 2022 Freezer Challenge!

These 25 labs from across Grounds completed various actions that promote efficient use of cold storage units such as cleaning out old freezers, scheduling preventative maintenance for units, fixing gaskets and cleaning condenser coils. These small actions can lead to big payoffs.  Together, participating UVA labs saved an estimated 441 kiloWatt hours per day! If these maintenance practices continue, they would generate more than $15,300 in energy savings a year. The amount of energy saved is comparable to the footprint of 14 average American homes. This is an important contribution towards UVA’s sustainability goals and highlights the central role that labs play in reaching those goals.

Each year, UVA’s Office for Sustainability administers its own Freezer Challenge, based on the same protocols as the international competition. This year, we congratulate Dr. Swapnil Sonkusare’s lab in the Cardiovascular Research Center, which won the UVA competition, achieving savings of 133.8 kWh per day.  Maniselvan Kuppusamy acted as the site coordinator for that lab, encouraging team members to complete actions and leading the team to victory. 

Congratulations to all the labs that helped lead UVA to international victory as an organization. The following is a list of labs that submitted scoresheets in the challenge and their site coordinators:

• Flow Cytometry Core Facility, Alex Wendling
• Multiscale Muscle Mechanophysiology (M3) Lab, Allie McCrady
• Gibson Lab, Anne Janisch
• Peirce-Cottler Lab, Anthony Bruce
• Tamm Lab, Daria Sokovikova
• Hirschi Lab, Elizabeth Nelson
• Morven Kitchen Garden Food Lab, Fiona Flynn
• Naegle Lab, Gabi Martinez
• Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance Core Facility, Dr. Jeffrey Elena
• Levental Lab, Dr. Kandice Levental
• McGlathery Lab, Margot Miller
• Civelek Lab, Noah Perry
• Papin Lab, Deb Powers
• Research Histology Core Facility, Sheri VanHoose
• Machan Research Group, Amelia Reid 
• Moore Lab, Dr. Antonio Vinicios Alves da Silva
• Janes Lab, Cheryl Borgman
• Center for Human Therapeutics Core Facility, Dana Schalk
• Griffin Lab, Juliana Trujillo
• Genome Analysis and Technology Core Facility, Dr. Katia Sol-Church
• Molmart Core Facility, Linda Beggerly
• Walsh Lab, Mark Thel
• Fallahi-Sichani Lab, Dr. Mohan Manikkam
• Biomolecular Analysis Facility, Dr. Nicholas Sherman
• Genetically Engineered Murine Model Core Facility, Dr. Wenhao Xu

By engaging with UVA’s Green Labs Program, these labs have demonstrated leadership in research and highlighted the incredible impact that our researchers can have through simple actions that reduce the environmental impact of their research while also supporting world-class research practices.

Thank you to all the participating labs and to the UVA Green Labs community for supporting this program and enabling UVA’s success achieving the Top Academic Organization Award for the 2022 Freezer Challenge!

The International Freezer Challenge takes place every year January through June. This year, 1,200 labs from 27 countries participated and saved a total of 6,732 metric tons of carbon dioxide.  Since the first year in 2017, labs from around the world have saved a total of 23.7 million kWh of energy. 

Contact the Green Labs Specialist at [email protected] with any questions.