Life cycle assessment for large and complex scientific equipment

The Federal Sustainable Development Strategy outlines the Government of Canada’s sustainable development goals. These goals are supported by the Greening Government Strategy, which outlines a set of commitments toward net-zero carbon, climate-resilient, and green operations. In a 2008 research report , scientific laboratories were reported to typically use five to ten times more energy per square meter than office buildings. Thus, improving the sustainability of federal laboratories is critical to achieving the Government of Canada’s greening goals.
In Budget 2022, the Government announced Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) would develop new tools, guidelines and targets to support the adoption of green procurement across the federal government. This work will assist with the transition to a net-zero, circular economy through green procurement, which includes life cycle assessment principles and the adoption of clean technologies and green products and services. Within PSPC, it is the Laboratories Canada initiative (Labs Canada) which will facilitate the greening of laboratories.
Among other specific actions, Labs Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) have committed to identify the categories within the existing federal inventory of large and complex scientific equipment that have the Highest environmental impacts (HICATs). Once the HICATs are identified, the products within those categories will be analyzed for product-specific environmental impacts. The results of this two-part study will inform the development of measures to address Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to the procurement of scientific equipment across federal science laboratories (e.g. the development of procurement criteria).