A year on from securing a Bronze LEAF award, the School’s Clinical Skills lab is celebrating moving up the podium to Silver status, reflecting concrete steps taken in 2025 to embedding greener ways of working into our practise and processes.
LEAF (Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework) is an initiative led by UCL to improve laboratory sustainability. Initially this focused on just research labs but, more recently, teaching labs have joined the movement.
Clinical Skills Lecturer Emma McCabe has been a driving force in the quest for the School to work more sustainably, and is quick to acknowledge that the success is a rewarding reflection of a fantastic team effort.
“This was only our second year applying. On our first attempt, and with the help of one of our medical students, we achieved the Bronze award. We are especially pleased to have progressed to Silver this year. This required evidence against 35 criteria, compared to 17 for Bronze, and represents a significant increase in the level of sustainable practice we were able to demonstrate.”
Over the past year, some of the key areas of work that supported the Silver award included:
- Introducing realistic measures, such as effective waste-segregation and recycling to reduce the use of consumables
- Networking with other labs, departments, schools, and universities around sustainable practices
- Working with manufacturers to explore schemes for more sustainable consumables such as needles and blood collection bottles used during teaching and assessments
- Embedding sustainability into our teaching and learning
- Engaging the team in sustainability focused activities such as regular meetings with our special interest group and attending conferences themed around sustainability and teaching
- Leading initiatives such as the Scrub Cycle, providing students with a sustainable way to recycle unwanted clinical scrubs.
The Scrubs Cycle has been a key sustainability driver
Clinical Skills Lecturer Kelly Leatherbarrow has been heavily involved in these implementations.
“As a team we are driving the importance of waste-segregation and promoting effective disposal of clinical waste to reinforce this and minimise contamination. We are also now recycling catheter bags and blood bottles from our teaching sessions to be used in self-directed areas with full support from students who are segregating items for reuse.”
A brand-new teaching session has been introduced in Year 1 which lays the foundations for effective waste management in clinical settings, a skill students will use in practise promoting both sustainable initiatives and infection control.
Helen Box, Director of Clinical Skills, Simulation & OSCE says, “The team’s achievements demonstrate a commitment for improvement, stronger procedures, processes and documentation as well as alignment with best practice, and plans in place to achieve this.
We now have our sights on Gold, which will require innovation, embedding practices, multiple lab champions and initiatives, and demonstrable reductions in Carbon footprint. Based on the results so far, I see no reason why the team can’t go all the way!”
Students have really supported effective waste segregation and recycling in the lab
Emma McCabe confirms the team has ambitions plans for the year ahead.
“We already have some exciting things planned for the next 12 months and are looking forward to seeing what changes we can make. We are always open to new ideas and invite anyone with an interest in sustainable healthcare to get involved!
We would love students to be a part of future projects and to think of us for their research, including Research & Scholarship (RS) modules. This is how we started on this journey after all—with third-year student Shane’s idea!”
Discover more
- Be a part of the movement for sustainable healthcare here at Liverpool. Get in touch with the team at clinicalskills.mbchb@liverpool.ac.uk if you are interested in research opportunities or want to contribute ideas and input.
- You can also join the School’s brand-new Sustainability and Sustainable Healthcare steering group. Expressions of interest, first actions and meetings coming soon!
- Learn more about the framework on LEAF Sustainable Labs and about the University’s Sustainability Strategy 2031 on University of Liverpool - Sustainability.