How a small team at IH is making lab testing services greener

Until now, lab operations had been largely overlooked as an opportunity for climate action.

Christine Henderson, a clinical sustainability coordinator with IH’s Environmental Sustainability team, jumped at the chance to investigate ways to make IH’s labs more sustainable when she was an intern in 2023.

“It’s a complex process,” says Christine. "A lab is governed by accreditation standards that ensure patient safety and quality of care. Our goal was to identify lab sustainability opportunities that maintain or improve the highest standards of care.”

Together with a small team of passionate professionals, Christine started what's known as an opportunity investigation. They focused on changes that could be easily implemented as a trial run.

One such quick win was switching from using sterile water to tap water for thawing frozen, sealed plasma bags. Sterile water is costly, takes a lot of plastic and energy to produce and ship and isn’t necessary for thawing.

Another quick win was shutting the sash on fume hoods, which are used to protect workers from chemicals like methanol and formalin. When the sash is left open, the hoods can use as much as three homes’ worth of energy in a day.

When the opportunity investigation phase was complete, the Environmental Lab Sustainability Focus Group was born.

Today, 10 hospital labs are participating in the IH Laboratory program’s focus group. Committee members—which include lab technologists and assistants, pathologists, digital health professionals and biosafety officers—meet regularly to discuss progress. The goal is to expand existing environmental sustainability solutions, and action them regionally as part of the annual Lab program plan.

“The importance of the IH Laboratory program’s coordinated approach to sustainability cannot be overstated,” says Christine. “It synchronizes asks of leadership, facilitates collaborative problem solving, and accelerates adoption of beneficial change.”

One of the outcomes of the opportunity investigation and project was a lab sustainability checklist. Checklists are used to share pre-approved changes, measure progress and collect information on baseline practices. Sustainability champions action the checklist with lab staff at their sites.

Items include simple actions like turning off lights and stopping the automatic printing of reports, which is expected to save 500,000 sheets of paper per year.

The project, which is still in its early days, has already garnered national attention and awards.

In November 2024, the KLH Laboratory was awarded the 2024–25 Green Lab Award from the Canadian Association of Pathologists.

In 2025, IH adapted the Greening the Lab Opportunity Investigation into a playbook for CASCADES, a national organization dedicated to promoting sustainable health care in Canada.

In March of this year, Christine Henderson and Dr. Lowden were selected to speak about the project at Health Quality BC’s 2025 Quality Forum.

“Two of our labs have also signed up for Using Labs Wisely, a program focused on the appropriate use of lab tests,” explains Dr. Launny Lowden, a pathologist and executive medical director. “Some of the changes are cultural, such as shifting away from habitual testing that isn’t valuable or necessary for the patient. By making sure a patient gets the right test at the right time for the right reason, we are providing higher quality care and saving the environment.”

Greening the Lab is one of many sustainability initiatives across IH. Other initiatives and projects are underway, such as expanding our fleet of electric vehicles, and Greening the Pharmacy and Greening the Operating Room opportunity investigations. This work is all connected to actions listed under IH’s Climate Change and Sustainability Roadmap, released in 2023.

Climate change is an urgent public health issue and is among IH’s strategic priorities. 

“By changing the climate, we put people’s health—and our health-care systems—at risk,” Christine says. “Making health care more sustainable protects patients now and in the future. It’s not just about the planet. It’s about taking care of people too.

“And we’re just getting started.”