Smart Labs enable safe and efficient world class science to occur in laboratories through high-performance methods. A Smart Labs program employs a combination of physical, administrative, and management techniques to assess, optimize, and manage high performance laboratories.

Video Url

Learn more about the Smart Labs process.

NREL

Smart Labs Toolkit

To guide stakeholders in developing a successful Smart Labs program, the Smart Labs Toolkit describes a systematic process to help laboratory owners and operators plan, assess, optimize, and manage laboratory facilities.

The toolkit includes step-by-step guidance, videos, tools, case studies, and other resources to help organizations cost-effectively achieve safe, efficient, and sustainable laboratories.

The Smart Labs Toolkit was developed by several contributors and includes results case studies highlighting of best practices and lessons learned from partners that participated in the Better Buildings Smart Labs Accelerator.

Need assistance?

Contact Kendall Kam at the U.S. Department of Energy.

Smart Labs Training

  • Smart Tools for Smart Labs shares available tools for putting together a team, assessing laboratory functions, and optimizing operation, including a case study from a university that successfully implemented a Smart Labs Program.
  • Transforming Research Labs Part II explores how to optimize laboratories through training and procurement and addresses how training and smarter procurement choices can increase the impact of those changes in the laboratory.
  • Smart Labs for Today's Energy Reality explores how a typical laboratory is three to four times more energy intensive than an average commercial building and can account for up to 70% of a campus' energy footprint, making laboratories a key focal area for energy and carbon management strategies. Additionally, labs' primary functions require consistent availability of energy and water.
  • Better Benchmarking for Laboratories provides a demonstration of the new Laboratory Benchmarking Tool, focuses on the tool's new features, and how to best use these features to further your sustainability goals.
  • See all laboratory trainings.

Smart Labs Accelerator

The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) teamed with Better Buildings on the Smart Labs Accelerator, an initiative that invited forward-leaning laboratories to be Smart Labs Accelerator Partners.

Federal agencies, hospitals, national laboratories, and universities across country have committed to implementing no- or low-cost measures in labs as part of the Smart Labs Accelerator.

Video Url

Learn more about the Smart Lab Accelerator.

U.S. Department of Energy
Map shows the locations of federal agencies, hospitals, national laboratories, and universities across the continental United States that have committed to be Smart Labs Accelerator partners.

Key Resources