Green Lab Associates in Asia – Beijing, China
After visiting Singapore, Martin left to Beijing to meet with I2SL’s China chapter. This chapter is led by Mr. Haipeng Chi, head of Dynaflow. Dynaflow manufactures laboratories, primarily for private companies. They boast impressive construction speed, able to assemble laboratories using prefab methods to reduce installation times to under 24 hours! We visited some of these speedily assembled labs at the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation’s Energy Research Institute, where we were met one of the VP’s Mr. Qi. The facility had recently achieved an award for being particularly efficient. The laboratories were particularly spacious and appeared suitable for high through-put. During our meeting with their local management, we discussed approaches to improving not just the building’s sustainability but also the way staff engaged with the facilities. Compared to a typical research institute in the west, their management was more hierarchal.
After touring around the bursting science park which housed the institute (4-5 new research institutes seemed to be under construction nearby), Martin visited the Dynaflow main office. There he was introduced to government officials responsible for Health & Safety and environmental practices. Approaches to efficiency were discussed, and we look forward to working with and learning from China’s efforts at sustainable science. Look out for Green Lab Associates at coming conferences hosted by Mr. Haipeng and his team.
