Sustainable Laboratory User Manual Working Group

Industry Leads: Adana Johns, Maria Montgomery, and Jacob Werner, Perkins and Will

• Purpose
• Focus Groups
• Get Involved
• Activities

Purpose

The Sustainable Laboratory User Manual working group was launched in October 2019 to create a new tool to enable sustainable laboratory operations. The manual is envisioned as:

• A living document that describes a facility’s purpose, functions, infrastructure, operations, and intended uses
• Containing guidance for owners and operators to enable them to intelligently use, maintain, and renovate the laboratory over time
• Capturing information about the facilities design and infrastructure, including capabilities, limitations, flexibility, adaptability, sustainability, and resilience
• Expandable to capture other information as desirable and useful to the facility owner, operator, or user
• Providing a flexible systems to collect and store common design and construction documents without duplicating them, including the Owners Project Requirements (OPR), Basis of Design (BOD), construction drawings, specifications, construction submittals, Building Information Models (BIM), Operations Manuals (O&Ms), commissioning reports, Testing and Balancing (TAB) reports, and other closeout documents
• Made up of systems, processes, and tools that are easy to use, flexible to change over time, open source, and portable to future owners, operators, and users

Focus Groups

The working group has identified initial focus groups for specific content development. Focus groups will develop systems, processes, forms, and tools to capture, record, and make topic information accessible for laboratory owners, operators, and users.

1. Building Design and Laboratory Planning
2. Laboratory Equipment
3. Buildings Systems
4. Policy and Reporting
5. Software Interface/Maintenance

Get Involved

This working group invites individuals and organizations committed to helping I²SL develop the Laboratory User Manual. Members are encouraged to contribute their expertise, energy, and ideas. The main group currently holds monthly conference calls; smaller subgroups are created for specific tasks and may hold more frequent calls or meetings as needed. To get involved, please contact Adana Johns or Maria Montgomery.

Activities

• The working group gave a presentation at the 2021 I²SL Annual Conference. View the PowerPoint presentation from the session.
• The working group convened via conference call on October 9, 2020 as part of the 2020 Virual I²SL Annual Conference. View the meeting presentation or watch the meeting recording.
• The working group convened via conference call on July 14, 2020. View the meeting minutes.
• The working group convened via conference call for its first meeting on June 2, 2020. View the meeting presentation and the meeting minutes.