Laboratories worldwide depend on single-use plastics for performance and sterility, but that reliance comes at a high environmental cost. Reducing the footprint of lab consumables requires new approaches — from renewable polymers to additive manufacturing and recycling strategies. Green Elephant Biotech is working in this space, with co-founder and managing director Joel Eichmann advocating for sustainability as an engine of innovation rather than a trade-off. In this interview, he discusses how these principles are shaping the company’s work.
How are you approaching sustainability in both the short and mid-term?
We don't view sustainability as a constraint, but rather as a lens through which to improve every part of our technology stack. In the short term, we have focused on minimizing the environmental impact of our consumables and production processes. This involves using recyclable, plant-based materials instead of fossil-based plastics, and employing digital manufacturing methods to reduce our use of raw materials.
Mid-term, we are scaling up these principles by building automation-ready systems that retain their sustainability benefits even at higher throughput. We design with both the end user and end of life in mind. Every feature must simultaneously improve performance and reduce environmental cost.
Which processes or lifecycle stages contribute most to carbon footprint reductions?
The most significant impact stems from two areas: the raw materials used to make single-use laboratory equipment and how it is disposed of at the end of its life.
When comparing polylactic acid (PLA) with polystyrene (PS), the difference in carbon footprint is substantial. PLA is derived from renewable agricultural resources and captures carbon dioxide during plant growth. Taking this carbon uptake into account, the raw material footprint of PLA is around 83 percent lower than that of fossil-based PS. This advantage is reflected in third-party certified values and contributes directly to lower upstream emissions in our supply chain.
The second major factor is end-of-life treatment. Third-party studies confirm that PLA can be recycled. This includes consumables that may contain residual media or cell material, provided that no genetically modified organisms, infectious agents, or dangerous substances were involved. In such cases, recycling is viable under the right regulatory framework and waste segregation protocols.
When recycling is not possible because of biosafety risks, incineration is the fallback option. Here, PLA results in significantly fewer emissions than PS because incinerating PLA leads to a 44 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions at the disposal stage.
We are continuing to expand our lifecycle assessments across product formats and to explore region-specific recycling pathways, with the aim of further reducing the carbon footprint of laboratory consumables.
Are you exploring end-of-life alternatives to incineration to reduce emissions?
Yes, we have already demonstrated the technical feasibility of recycling PLA-based laboratory consumables. What we now need are the right partners to help us implement this. We are actively seeking early adopters who are willing to help us set up a collection and recycling scheme in the EU and in the UK that meets regulatory and biosafety requirements.
Composting and biodegradation may sound attractive, but they offer no real carbon benefit over incineration. The end product is still carbon dioxide, and, unlike organic waste, PLA does not enrich the soil. Furthermore, the infrastructure for composting bioplastics is limited and inconsistent across regions. In my view, recycling is the most promising path forward.
What other innovations are you working on?
We’re developing technologies that treat sustainability and efficiency as two sides of the same design challenge. One major area of focus is an automated, closed system for adherent cell culture. This system is designed to reduce manual handling, improve reproducibility, and minimize human error, while also lowering the operational footprint. Reduced handling also means less plastic waste, such as that from single-use gowning, and the closed system enables us to work under lower clean room requirements.
Additive manufacturing is also an interesting area for us. 3D printing can be used to build highly efficient geometries that reduce the use of raw materials. More importantly, it enables rapid iteration. We can refine product features based on real-world feedback, eliminating the need for wasteful retooling and accelerating both development and scaling up.
A platform mindset ties it all together: we want our solutions to evolve alongside our customers’ needs, from early development to large-scale production, without compromising on environmental responsibility.
What technical or commercial challenges have you faced in adopting PLA-based materials and additive manufacturing in regulated settings?
Although PLA is relatively new to bioprocessing, it is not new to other industries. It has been used for years in medical applications, including implants, and this has helped pave the way for its regulatory acceptance. We’ve followed the same qualification path for our own products as is used for any United States Pharmacopeia Class VI plastic, including full extractables and leachables testing, biocompatibility testing, and testing for the absence of animal-derived materials.
With additive manufacturing, the key challenge is consistency. To meet expectations in regulated environments, 100 percent product traceability and testing is required. Every single part produced must be quality-checked and linked to documented process parameters, including the lot of the raw material and the machine settings used. This level of control enables additive manufacturing to be used for more than just prototyping; it can use it for the full-scale production of functional, customer-facing products.
What impact do you think the shift toward mandatory sustainability will have on lab equipment design and industry standards more broadly?
As a smaller company, we are in a unique position to act quickly, experiment with new approaches, and contribute real-world data to ongoing regulatory discussions. We don’t just wait for standards to be set. We try to anticipate them and get ahead of the game.
For instance, our work on biopolymer-based laboratory equipment has already produced lifecycle and recyclability data that could influence the definition of future ESG metrics for bioprocessing consumables.
There is a clear need for more practical, technology-neutral guidance on sustainability in regulated environments. As a company that has done the hard work of aligning performance, compliance, and environmental goals in actual products, we see an opportunity to contribute to this.
Ultimately, the shift to mandatory sustainability requirements is not a burden; it’s a blueprint. It provides structure and urgency to the innovations we already support.
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