Assessment of the carbon footprint of an automated biochemistry toxicology platform: feedback from Rouen University Hospital

The aim of our institutional project is to make ecological transition an integrated issue at all levels. We wanted to measure the carbon footprint of the automated shared platform known as IBCore following its renewal (Roche, Meylan, France). This platform performs all emergency and high-volume analyses in biochemistry, pharmacology, and toxicology. In 2025, IBCore performed more than 4 million analyses. The total emissions of the analytical platform were estimated at 657.4 tons of CO₂eq/year. The five main sources of emissions account for 93% of total annual emissions: purchases of reagents/consumables (69.6%); energy consumption (8.8%); platform equipment (7.4%); sample transport (4.7%); and employee commuting (2.6%). An "average" biological analysis, corresponding to a weighted average, represents approximately 0.16 kgCO₂eq. The gain from the upgrade (cobas® 8000 to cobas® pro) has been estimated at 9.2 tons CO₂eq/year, representing a reduction of 1.3%. Future improvements include sample transport by drone, with a potential gain estimated at 27.9 tons CO₂eq/year, and the consolidation of serology analyses on the IBCore platform, with a gain of 2.1 tons CO₂eq/year. Finally, we believe that our measurement of the CO₂ footprint per test is a new argument that can be used to engage physicians in a more rational ordering of biology tests.