APPA Webinar: How Smart is Your Lab? Achieving High-Performance Laboratories with the Smart Labs Toolkit

Laboratories are complex buildings that can be challenging and costly to operate correctly, typically consuming up 3 to 4 times more energy than similar-sized commercial buildings. Additionally, while many businesses and institutions have been affected by COVID-19, labs in particular have faced unique challenges of continuing or ramping up critical work while keeping researchers safe. Other labs had to quickly close, then determine how to return to work with new safety practices in place. To guide stakeholders in research facilities to enhance energy efficiency and safety of indoor environments in new or existing laboratories, the Smart Labs Toolkit will be presented. A Smart Labs program employs a combination of physical, administrative, and management techniques to assess, optimize, manage and maintain high performance laboratories. Attendees will walk away from the presentation with a framework for building a successful program based on the Smart Labs Toolkit to start improving lab facilities to operate cost-effectively, increase flexibility and dependability, improve safety, and enhance energy efficiency.