The International Freezer Challenge is a worldwide competition, going on from now through July 1st 2022, that is focused on lowering energy usage. The objective of the challenge is to optimize sustainability of freezer management in laboratories, where individual labs work to implement optimal cold storage management in order to improve laboratory conservation. At the end of the competition, the most successful labs are rewarded through several categories, including academia, pharmaceutical and biotech, government, and clinical, hospital, private research, or other.

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The Freezer Challenge at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is focused on engaging, educating, and motivating researchers, faculty, staff, and students to promote the best lab-management sample-storage practices and leadership in environmental stewardship. The Freezer Challenge is encouraged by the OVCRI's office with Leadership in Environmental Stewardship Certificates for all participants and awards for the top scoring labs are presented by the EcOlympics student group. We started by participating in the International Freezer Challenge in the 2016-2017 academic year. We have been quite successful in the competition ever since joining, and have ranked first in the Academic Organization category the past four years! Our successes have been assisted by our collaboration with EcoOlympics Student Organization; the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, Division of Research Safety & Innovation; the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE); the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC); and Facilities & Services.

​Learn more about the success of The Freezer Challenge at UIUC