In December 2024, King's signed the UKRI’s Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice, which aims to have visible and credible leadership for environmental sustainability, ensure research and innovation is carried out in an environmentally sustainable way, and promote shifts to climate conscious ways of working.

In 2025, four ambitious projects were awarded funding through the Sustainable research project grant, seeking to address key sustainability challenges within the research process. From reducing waste to changing practices through bringing in new technologies, these projects are a key step in embedding sustainability into our research process.

Our research departments are reliant on energy-hungry cold storage units to store samples and reagents. To reduce the carbon footprint associated with these units, we are comprehensively mapping cold storage across the estate, as well as concentrating on swapping out legacy Ultra Low Temperature freezers with energy-efficient alternatives to secure our samples whilst minimising environmental harm. Since our 2-for-1 exchange scheme began, we have removed 144 legacy units and freed up approximately 72m2 laboratory space. We are also encouraging all our departments to engage with My Green Lab’s international freezer challenge competition. In 2026, we improved participation by 266% resulting in KCL placing 4th globally in the competition and two of our departments winning outright within their categories. This challenge is crucial for encouraging best practice and behavioural changes which minimise the energy output of cold storage units.