Rethinking laboratory sustainability in the age of AI and automation

Laboratories are resource-intensive, but increased automation and AI will intensify power use and building specification requirements, making operational and embodied-carbon benchmarks harder to meet. Yet labs are essential to scientific progress, so should we be more flexible in assessing their sustainability?

The gap between metrics and reality

Highly sustainable scientific buildings incorporating the latest innovations in embodied carbon, renewable energy and operational efficiency could still obtain high BREEAM ratings, even with intense energy consumption, as buildings aren’t penalised by the activities within them under BREEAM accreditation.

However, the new UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standard uses sectoral benchmarks to fix embodied carbon and operational energy usage in science and technology buildings, which would be affected by increased building specification and operational demands. Moreover, these Net Zero limits actually reduce over time to reflect anticipated improvements in sustainable technology and innovations in structural systems and building services.

While targets do drive change, they may date rapidly and struggle to accommodate the diversity and uncertainty of future laboratory environments due to increased use of AI and automation.

Measuring what matters

Rather than applying prescriptive targets, a more bespoke sustainability framework approach could evaluate buildings against criteria that reflect more relevant and reflective sustainability objectives, site constraints and opportunities, local stakeholder requirements and operational realities. These criteria should also respond to the building’s intended use, long-term adaptability and overall lifecycle value, avoiding penalising developments that accommodate intensive and future-proofed science operations, in turn enabling greater building longevity and minimising future adaptation works.

This doesn’t mean abandoning accreditation systems altogether, but revisiting the way they are assessed by guiding an energy efficient direction, informed by expertise rather than purely prescriptive metrics. Accreditation can help to incentivise investment in sustainability and reward ambition, demonstrating sustainability performance to stakeholders.

Longevity: the missing metric?

We need greater emphasis on longevity and adaptability.

In this era of exponential technological advancement, building shells last for decades while scientific equipment, research processes and tenant requirements evolve dramatically.

Laboratories that achieve excellent sustainability credentials, either based on existing or bespoke frameworks, shouldn’t require extensive refurbishment or become functionally obsolete as science progresses. A building designed to adapt to scientific advancement will deliver more sustainability long-term and adopting formal longevity and adaptability strategies during the development process could increase design teams’ prioritisation of resilience, flexibility and value.

Designing for adaptation

If longevity becomes a key sustainability objective, reframing design approaches around building adaptation and reuse is required.

Designing in layers (with different replacement strategies for building elements, covering site, structure, façade, services, layout and fitout) will build in circular thinking.

Adaptability includes accommodating different tenancies and uses over time. Through the building itself, this may be flexibility in slab-to-slab heights, loading capacity, structural grids, or vibration response factors. Central plant and services distribution design, allowing for future modifications and expansion, can accommodate unforeseen needs and improve a building’s usable life before requiring refurbishment. MEP systems that isolate areas provide resilience and minimise disruption, cost and structural adaptation as uses change.

These may increase capital expenditure and embodied carbon initially but can generate substantial environmental benefits over a building's lifespan.

Looking ahead

Ultimately, we need a shift in thinking.

To date, laboratory sustainability has been defined by generic building assessment certification standards. These will continue to be important, however, as laboratories evolve, sustainability assessment should evolve too.

The future’s most sustainable laboratory might not be the one that performs best against standardised certification schemes, but reduces obsolescence, and responds to site-specific issues and occupier specific needs. 

Further information

Contact Emily Slupek or Dan Jestico

Science is for life, not just for cycles

This topic was discussed at the Construction News & Property Week Life Science Clusters Conference in summer 2026, sponsored by I2SL. We’re grateful to them for the opportunity to discuss the issue with industry peers.