Unlock hidden capacity: Turn cold storage waste into strategic research assets

This session reveals findings from 89 institutions showing 54% average cold storage utilization and over half of stored materials unusable—yet cold storage consumes 16–26% of lab space. Kathi Shea demonstrates a data-driven assessment methodology that quantifies wasted space, energy costs, and carbon emissions across existing cold storage infrastructure. She shows how operational assessments identify opportunities to eliminate inefficient units and transition to centralized, high-density automated systems that replace up to 160 ULT freezers while reducing electricity consumption by 67%. She delivers actionable ROI frameworks for space reallocation, cost savings, and sustainability gains, and sets out integration strategies linking facility planning with sample management workflows to design scalable cold storage solutions aligned with evolving scientific needs and institutional efficiency goals.