The wellcome environmental sustainability funding policy
From The Embassy of Good Science
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The wellcome environmental sustainability funding policy
What is this about?
The Wellcome Environmental Sustainability Funding Policy sets out Wellcome’s expectations for researchers and organisations receiving its funding to conduct research in an environmentally sustainable way. Wellcome recognises that health research is essential for addressing global health challenges, but that research itself can have a significant environmental impact through energy use, travel, equipment, materials, computing and waste. The policy asks researchers to consider sustainability when designing their projects, purchasing equipment and materials, travelling, managing research outputs and measuring environmental impacts. Researchers are encouraged to reduce, reuse and recycle resources, share equipment, use refurbished equipment where appropriate, reduce single-use plastics, minimise unnecessary travel and use sustainable approaches to computing and data-intensive research. It also places responsibilities on research organisations, including providing sustainability training, supporting environmental impact measurement and ensuring laboratories achieve recognised sustainability accreditation such as LEAF or My Green Lab.
Why is this important?
The policy is important because research has its own environmental footprint, and Wellcome wants the research it funds to contribute to solutions without unnecessarily increasing environmental damage. Laboratories can consume large amounts of energy and generate substantial plastic and hazardous waste, while fieldwork, conferences and computing can also produce significant emissions. The policy makes environmental sustainability part of the research funding process, encouraging researchers to consider environmental impacts from the beginning of a project. It also means that sustainability is not simply an institutional responsibility: researchers, universities and funders all have a role. Wellcome can fund sustainable equipment, materials, essential lower-carbon travel, sustainability training and environmental impact measurement as part of research grants.
