Work practices and culture
The Sanger Institute is committed to creating a workplace where sustainability is embedded into everyday decisions and ways of working. In the office, Stores and other non-laboratory environments, our working practices directly affect the environment through the energy consumed goods purchased and resources we use. This theme focuses on how changing behaviours can reduce our impact in these areas, supporting our sustainability goals.
Our work practices and culture goals
Our sustainable work practices and culture change goals are to:
- Embed sustainable behaviours across all office areas by providing clear guidance, tools and expectations.
- Create regular opportunities for staff to learn about and participate in sustainability at Sanger.
- Reduce unnecessary resource use in office-based operations, including cutting down on printing and minimising reliance on single-use or short-lived materials.
- Encourage continuous improvement and innovation by trialing new initiatives, partnerships, and solutions that help staff reduce waste and adopt more sustainable working habits.
At the Sanger Institute, we are taking action to strengthen sustainable work practices and culture by encouraging positive behaviours, improving awareness, and integrating environmental considerations into everyday decision-making. The steps below outline the measures we’re taking, and have already taken, to support a workplace culture that enables and champions sustainability.
We’ve developed and a re rolling out our bespoke Green Office Guide – a framework that helps offices adopt more environmentally friendly practices. It provides a structured set of criteria that teams can follow to make their workplace more sustainable.
We’ve implemented innovative ways to prevent office waste, including partnering with the Turing Trust to donate unused equipment to schools in need and running stationery amnesties to give resources a second life after Sanger.
We’re promoting and supporting reductions in key environmental impact areas – such as cutting unnecessary printing – to lower resource use and support more sustainable working habits.
We run sustainability events, workshops and engagement activities throughout the year to raise awareness, build knowledge, and encourage positive culture change across Sanger. In addition, we dedicate a focused week each year to Sanger’s Sustainability Week. During this week, we bring our staff together through a programme of talks, interactive workshops, site tours, campaigns and activities.
Supporting Sustainable Development Goals
The United Nations have created a set of 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were adopted by all UN Member States in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Sustainable work practices and culture change supports two of the UN Sustainable Development Goals including:
- Industry, innovation and infrastructure (to build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialsation and foster innovation).
- Partnerships for the goals (to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development).
We are proud to support these goals and we developed our Environmental Strategy to embrace and fulfil these goals.
Sanger Sustainability Strategy
Reducing and promoting responsible energy use is just one part of our wider Sanger Sustainability Strategy. It divides our activities into key areas that reflect our most important environmental impacts.
Aligning sustainability with our values and behaviours is central to creating a culture of responsibility and innovation. By embedding sustainability into everyday decisions, we can drive lasting change.
Sustainable work practicies and culture is just one of 12 themes you can explore, each contributing to our shared goal of a more sustainable future.
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