A framework for change
The first step to reducing the carbon footprint of any activity is to understand which of its constituent elements are carbon-intense. The industry Low Carbon Clinical Trials (iLCCT) collaboration is currently developing an approach to measure the carbon footprint of trials.
This approach will assist trial designers to incorporate environmental sustainability concepts into their decision-making before the trial is initiated as well as during its operation. It is also vital to ensure that the footprint of trials, wherever and however they are initiated and run, can be measured utilising an industry standard, and reported on a consistent and credible basis. This will be an essential component of trial sponsors’ and researchers’ abilities to drive their own environmental sustainability efforts and to meet their responsibility to engage their stakeholders as they come under ever-increasing expectations to disclose and to mitigate their own and their supply chains’ environmental impacts.
Join our beta test
The collaboration has developed Method and Guidance documents to assist trial practitioners and sponsors in assessing their trials’ carbon footprints. The programme has now also published a beta version of an easy-access online tool to enable users to generate estimates of a clinical trial’s carbon footprint by activity. It is intended to facilitate pre-trial assessments of the carbon implications of trial design decisions and to assist with post-trial foot-printing.
To inform the development of the Clinical Trial Carbon Calculator, we are asking you to get involved by using the tool and sharing your feedback with us.
We have designed a questionnaire to help you structure your feedback. Please make sure you have logged your comments in the feedback form by 3rd September 2024. We will follow up with interviews, if we need to clarify anything and if you consent to us doing so, and we will be running a feedback workshop on 10th September to discuss the results and take any further comments.
Links to the calculator, a short user guide to help steer you towards the data input areas of the calculator and feedback form are available from the side menu. A link to the methodology and guidance behind the calculator is also available in the side menu.
Link to register for the feedback workshop will also be available from this page. Please use the contact form to register your interest if you want to receive updates from us or have any immediate questions. Thank you for engaging with us in this effort.
Beta test timeline
| Date | Activity |
|---|---|
| 3rd Aug 2024 | Beta test materials and feedback questionnaire made live from SHC website. Core stakeholders invited by email to participate in the beta- test. |
| 3rd Sept 2024 | Closing date for testers submitting feedback. |
| 3rd – 17 th Sept 2024 | Follow-up interviews with testers, for clarifications as required |
| 10th Sept 2024 | Feedback webinar roundtable. |
| 17 th Sept 2024 | Feedback assessment, recommendations for calculator development and report to collaboration working groups. Final revision of the calculator starts. |
| 1st Oct 2024 | Calculator revision complete and final version launched to its open domain. |
Our collaboration
ERM Limited provided technical support and the calculator has been coded by 2B.co.uk
Please use the contact form below to ask any questions or request your name to be added to the distribution list for updates and alerts for upcoming events.