Planning authorities are increasingly asking questions about laboratory water use, and we can’t afford to ignore wasteful processes any longer. Understanding how and where water is used is the first step to addressing it, says Rob Templey at Ridge.
Laboratories are resource-intensive buildings. Operators have made concerted efforts to reduce energy consumption and decarbonise power supplies – much less attention has been paid to water use.
As a very high-level average, a lab uses around four times as much water as an office of the same size. But this hides wide variation between different labs, and between equipment and processes. At Ridge, we’re on a mission to redefine water intensity, and that starts with a greater understanding of how and where water is consumed.
Over the last ten years, the science sector has got to grips with its power consumption, capturing data through sub-metering and using that identify inefficiencies and smooth out the peaks and troughs. Now we need to do the same for water.
Why we need to address water use in laboratories
The science sector’s demand for water is growing rapidly, with new development throughout the Golden Triangle and further afield. The government has put research at the heart of its future industrial strategy.
But even before the UK’s hottest summer since records began, planning authorities were already demanding evidence that water demand had been minimised in new laboratories. This doesn’t just apply to the water-stressed Cambridge area where I am based; water has become a more prominent concern in planning decisions in many other jurisdictions.
With drought declared across more than 70% of England and all of Wales, scrutiny of laboratory water use is only set to grow.
Water-intensive buildings have a direct impact on local communities because water is a finite, shared resource. It takes time for rainfall to recharge reservoirs and aquifers and every litre wasted is a litre that is not available for other uses.
Unlike energy, water consumption also results in a direct by-product: wastewater. This amplifies the impacts, and means that twice as much infrastructure is required: to supply science buildings and the growing ecosystems around them, and to move and treat the effluent they produce.
That means it is even more important that we design and operate laboratories to use water efficiently, to reduce the burden on distribution networks and treatment plant capacity.
As designers, all of our solutions start from data and evidence – but this needs to be a sector-wide collaboration.”
Rob Templey
MEP Engineering, Associate Partner
Why do laboratories use so much water?
To understand exactly how water is used in science buildings, Ridge has combined data from the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) with metering on our own projects and the insights of our team, which includes former lab managers.
Over the last two decades, standards such as BREEAM have driven down sanitary water use, by mandating more efficient taps, showers and toilets. But this has overlooked the much greater proportion used in the daily operations of a laboratory – accounting for 80% of total consumption according to our analysis.
What is driving that 80%?
Water is essential to laboratory processes for ensuring quality, consistency and a sterile environment. But business as usual may not be the most effective or efficient way to do this. Some practices cannot be altered to meet research standards, but this shouldn’t prevent us from examining whether the same result could be achieved with less water, or the waste captured for reuse elsewhere in the building or for irrigation.
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Over 50%
of all water use is down to laboratory staff. It’s not necessarily inherent in the process, but subject to individual behaviours – for example, methods of sterilising equipment can vary widely.
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16%
of water use is down to the way people use equipment within laboratories. Building designers and managers are responsible for making sure laboratory staff have access to equipment that uses only the water that is needed.
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12%
of laboratory water use can be attributed to the equipment itself, which comes down to specification and facilities management. Specialist equipment manufacturers are producing more efficient devices.
It’s also worth highlighting the impact of water purification, which is necessary for certain lab processes.
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4 litres
of untreated water is needed to produce one litre of purified water by reverse osmosis.
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300 litres
of purified water is consumed by an autoclave per cycle, depending on how it is loaded.
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5,500 litres
a year is wasted by a leaking tap – but if that water has already been purified, 22,000 litres of domestic water has been wasted.
Better design, management and data sharing
These figures show that reducing water use isn’t about one single intervention. How laboratories are designed and managed, the equipment within them and how people use it all have a part to play.
Laboratories are complex buildings, and we’re on a mission to understand how they are commissioned and operated in practice. As designers, all of our solutions start from data and evidence – but this needs to be a sector-wide collaboration.
Let's talk
Rob Templey is an associate partner in the science and research team at Ridge, and a MEP specialist for laboratory buildings.
Contact him at robtempley@ridge.co.uk.
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