Decarbonization in Biobanking: A Potential New Scientific Area

Calls to reduce or entirely remove the carbon footprint of ongoing activities, collectively termed as decarbonization, have become increasingly more vocal in health care with a number of recent, high profile consensus statements. These calls encourage the biobanking field, as one of the foundational health care research infrastructures, to consider decarbonization as a potential novel research area both in terms of the molecules and the equipment used in research. The current article provides a summary of the roundtable discussion during the 2022 ISBER Annual Meeting and Exhibits, highlighting the current knowledge gaps, challenges, and opportunities in this field. In particular, technological innovation, a greater awareness of the current situation, and behavioral change are important pieces of the puzzle to improving the future of decarbonization in biobanking, even if the eventually implemented routes between resource-abundant and resource-restricted settings might be distinctly different. This article sets the foundation for raising awareness of the subject and of subsequent steps that need to be undertaken.