The National Freezer Challenge 2025 has started!

The impact of freezers
Laboratories have a big ecological footprint, partly because of energy-intensive equipment. A big part of equipment are the freezers that are heavily used in labs. One Ultra-Low Temperature (ULT) freezer at -70°C or -80°C can use as much energy as 2-3 average Dutch households! While freezers are indispensable for research and healthcare, they contribute substantially to the environmental impact of labs.

Cleaning up together
By using freezers in a smarter way and sorting out a freezer's content regularly, we can save a lot of energy at laboratories. That's why we organize the first National Freezer Challenge, inspired by an international initiative. The goal: reduce the content of -20°C, ULT, and cryofreezers (-150°C and liquid nitrogen) and manage your freezers more efficiently. Participants do not only clean up, but also write down how much space they free up and answer questions in a survey. In this way, we can calculate our national impact and create more awareness about sustainable freezer management.

Join the challenge!
All university medical centers (UMCs) in the Netherlands are represented in the national NFU working group, and each have a designated person who organizes the challenge internally (the institute coordinator). You can reach your institute coordinator via the email addresses displayed in the table below.
Not only UMCs, but all organizations with laboratories can appoint an institute coordinator and participate, including hospitals, universities, and research institutes. Registration is possible until the end of November. All information about the National Freezer Challenge can be found on this page. 

If you would like to take part in the Freezer Challenge, you can join as follows:

1. Appoint one or more people in your department to coordinate the challenge at the departmental level (the department coordinator). This could, for example, be a lab manager, the local green team, or an enthusiastic colleague who is willing to support this initiative within the department.
2. This person will receive all practical tools from the institute coordinator to set up the challenge in your department, including manuals, communication materials, and a questionnaire to collect the results of the clean-up from all participants.
3. Everyone can then clean up their freezers individually and record how much space has been freed up. You have until the end of the year to do this. Make sure you submit the results of your clean-up via the questionnaire (which will be shared within your department) no later than December 31.
4. The answers from the questionnaires will be collected by the department coordinator and then forwarded to the institute coordinator, who will compile the results from all departments.
5. The Challenge starts on September 1 and runs until December 31, 2025. At the beginning of 2026, the NFU working group will share the results of the challenge and highlight several clean-up efforts.

So clean up your freezers before the end of the year and help make the lab sector in the Netherlands more sustainable together!