This summary was prepared by Hamed Kioumarsi, EBM at Springer Nature, in collaboration with Reza Naseri Harsini and Ghazal Atef, from the Animal Science Research Department, Gilan Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Rasht, Iran.
Citation: Kioumarsi, H., Naseri Harsini, R., & Atef, G. (2026). Sustainable Laboratory Animal Research: Environmental Footprints, the 3Rs, and Climate Action. Research Communities by Springer Nature. https://go.nature.com/4yDjrCu
Introduction
The issues such as climate change, SDGs, and the green transition are multidisciplinary problems which need international cooperation in order to solve them. These issues must be considered at all levels of society and in all areas of life, from education, policies, businesses, technologies, to personal decisions. Laboratory animals have been significant contributors to the field of biomedical science, veterinary medicine, toxicology, physiology, pharmacology, and drug discovery. Nevertheless, in recognition of the interrelationship between the health of humans, animals, and the planet, more consideration needs to be given to the environmental impacts of laboratory animal research. Animal research institutions require considerable infrastructure and diverse resources. Laboratory animals require maintenance under stringent conditions of temperature, humidity, ventilation, lighting, sanitation, and sterilization. Further, the institution consumes large amounts of water, energy, feed, bedding material, drugs, plastic and chemical materials, among others. Transport, cage cleaning, waste management, and disposal are also responsible for the total environmental impact. Therefore, laboratory animal research cannot be considered to have no environmental impact. Increasingly, the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) is emphasizing the need for environmental sustainability together with the traditional 3Rs approach.
This issue has become increasingly important as the scientific community seeks to generate knowledge capable of addressing climate change while simultaneously ensuring that the research process itself has as small an environmental footprint as possible.
The Environmental Footprint
There are several reasons why a significant part of the environmental footprint caused by the research on laboratory animals stems from animal care and maintenance as well as facility operation and maintenance. First, there are certain conditions that need to be met in order to maintain animals in laboratory settings properly. These include proper air conditioning, heating, and ventilation. Ventilation is especially important, as animal facilities require a higher level of air exchanges than regular buildings in order to ensure proper air quality for the animals. Moreover, there are water requirements in addition to the need to ensure certain temperature and humidity level in the rooms where animals live. Apart from direct consumption, water consumption also leads to additional environmental consequences due to its transportation, heating, and purification. Waste management is another crucial aspect when it comes to environmental footprint. It includes treatment, incineration or other means of managing animal bedding, feed, manure, tissue, contaminated material, personal protective equipment, plastic waste, and laboratory chemicals, which may also lead to greenhouse gas emission.
Notably, the impact that laboratory animal research makes on the environment cannot only be measured by looking at greenhouse gas or carbon emissions. The water usage, resource usage, creation of wastes, as well as chemical pollution that affects both aquatic and terrestrial environments must also be taken into account. This requires an assessment of the life cycle.
The 3Rs and Environmental Sustainability
The 3Rs principles offer an interesting approach to linking animal welfare and environmental sustainability. The first R stands for replacement; it means that scientifically valid alternatives to the use of animals should be used whenever possible. The second principle of reduction suggests using the smallest number of animals needed to receive scientifically valid data, while the third one, refinement, calls for decreasing pain, suffering, and distress, and improving animal welfare.
The practice of 3Rs can also have positive impact on the environment. Fewer animals used in experiments mean less resources spent on their housing, feeding, cleaning, and water. Well-designed experiments, which require fewer animals to provide the maximum number of scientifically valuable information can help to save some of the resources used for conducting research.
In this case, scientific quality and environmental sustainability can go hand in hand. Inadequately designed experiment, which does not provide any possibility of obtaining valid scientific results, is unnecessary consumption of energy, materials, animals, money, and time.
Still, it must not be assumed automatically that environmental advantages can be attributed to the 3Rs. Other approaches used in research can require significant amounts of resources as well, including energy-demanding equipment, specific infrastructure, plasticware, and high-performance computing, among others. Therefore, an alternative to animal experimentation does not always imply less environmental impact.
This is one of the most crucial issues for future research. Life-cycle assessment is needed to compare the environmental impact of various replacement, reduction, and refinement approaches. This way, scientists would be able to choose those alternatives that allow achieving positive effects on all three fronts simultaneously.
Moving Toward Net-Zero
Reducing the environmental footprint of laboratory animal research will require a coordinated strategy involving researchers, research institutions, facility managers, funding organizations, and policymakers.
A crucial first step is for institutions to measure the environmental impact of their animal research facilities. Accurate measurement would allow one to identify the sources of the greatest environmental impacts and take appropriate action accordingly. Energy efficiency improvement should also be the next area of focus. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, energy-efficient devices, renewable and/or lower carbon foot print electricity generation, building and insulating measures, and better management of the facilities are some of the steps that can be taken to lower emissions. Sterilization and cage washing machines should also be evaluated since they use up a lot of energy and water.
Procurement of environmentally friendly materials and equipment can be another area through which one can minimize environmental impacts. Research laboratories should look at cost, quality, and sterility as well as the environmental impact of the materials used in the processes.
At the experimental level, researchers should also consider whether existing datasets, imaging technologies, computational methods, organoid systems, cell-based models, or other validated alternatives could adequately address a research question before initiating new animal experiments. The overarching objective should be to obtain scientifically robust and meaningful results while minimizing unnecessary impacts on both animals and the environment.
Connecting Laboratory Animal Research With the SDGs
The concept of environmental sustainability of laboratory animals can also be considered in the wider context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being) is directly linked to biomedical and health research. On the other hand, laboratory animal research is significantly connected to SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) and SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) concerning the conservation of water and energy. SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) is especially relevant due to the need for effective usage of resources and reduction of waste. SDG 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 15 (Life on Land) present environmental goals associated with the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and protection of ecosystems.
Opportunities and Future Directions
The trend towards making the research involving laboratory animals more sustainable is not to be considered a critique of legitimate scientific use of animals in research. On the contrary, it offers possibilities to make research better, innovate, become more efficient and reinforce its ethical basis.
Further research in this field might be directed towards creation of standardized methods of assessment of carbon, water, material and waste footprints of laboratory animals experiments. Life-cycle analysis of the different phases of laboratory animals' research might be especially valuable in this case. Research organizations and grant-giving organizations might incentivize researchers to include indicators of sustainability along with traditional results of the experiment or scientific research.
It is possible that scientific journals and research ethics committees might contribute significantly in terms of promoting sustainable approaches. Environmental considerations should be increasingly included in the planning of research, facilities management and sustainable strategy of the organization involved in laboratory animals' research and biomedical research. However, it is necessary to remember that sustainable efforts should be evidence-based and cannot negatively affect welfare of laboratory animals, biosafety, research quality or scientific validity.
Ultimately, laboratory animal welfare should be understood as one component of a broader framework for responsible and sustainable research. Animal protection, scientific rigor, efficient resource use, climate action, and environmental stewardship need not be competing objectives. Instead, they can reinforce one another when incorporated into thoughtful research planning and facility management.
Conclusion
In thinking about the future of laboratory animals research, one cannot just consider how much knowledge and how high the quality of knowledge is obtained but also consider the responsible way of obtaining such knowledge. An ideal animal research laboratory would focus on achieving high animal welfare, avoiding unnecessary experiments, using resources efficiently, minimizing waste, and reducing its environmental impact. The increasing linkage between the 3Rs, environmental sustainability, climate action, net zero aspirations, and the SDGs presents an excellent opportunity for rethinking current laboratory operations and encouraging scientific research with minimal environmental impacts.
In the efforts by the scientific community towards realizing a better and sustainable future, laboratory animals research needs to form an integral part of that process. Scientific excellence in the coming decades will not only be judged by the quality and accuracy of scientific findings but also by their ethical and environmental impacts.
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