A laboratory at the University of Oxford has won the top prize at the city’s 2026 climate awards, after transforming the way it uses plastic, energy and transport. Raff Lab, based at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, was named overall winner at the third annual Oxford Climate Awards, held at Oxford Town Hall on Thursday 15 October 2026.
The laboratory also won the Innovation in Climate Action Award. Its laboratory manager, Dr Saroj Saurya, was separately named Climate Action Champion 2026, in recognition of her work leading the laboratory’s green transformation.
The awards are administered by the Oxford Times, Oxford City Council, Oxford Mail and LOCALiQ, and celebrate individuals, organisations, businesses, councils and community groups working to protect the environment across Oxfordshire. It is the latest Oxford climate champion success story from the city’s research community.
What the laboratory changed
Under new management approaches, Raff Lab now recycles or reuses almost all of its plastic materials, according to local reporting of the awards. The changes are saving the laboratory at least £15,000 a year.
The laboratory has also improved the efficiency of its freezers and encouraged staff to travel to work more sustainably. Laboratories are heavy users of single-use plastics and energy-hungry cold storage, so small changes to daily routines can add up quickly across a large research department.
Why the judges chose a laboratory
Councillor Anna Railton, deputy leader of Oxford City Council, was one of the judges for the overall prize, which was sponsored by the council. She said scalability proved crucial in the decision: with numerous laboratories operating across Oxford, the methods used by Raff Lab could be adopted readily by similar facilities.
That point is central to the story. A single laboratory’s savings matter, but a method that other laboratories can copy multiplies the effect without new technology or large spending.
Oxford climate champion: who is Dr Saroj Saurya?
Dr Saurya is the laboratory manager in Raff Lab and chair of the Dunn School Green Group, which works to reduce the department’s carbon footprint. She joined Raff Lab in 2010 and has worked there for more than a decade.
Her sustainability work is long-standing. Raff Lab has earned Laboratory Environmental Assessment Framework (LEAF) Gold awards for several consecutive years, and Dr Saurya received the University of Oxford’s Environmental Sustainability Staff Award in 2023. Accepting the new awards, she stressed that collective action remains essential, saying that no individual can achieve this alone.
Other winners at the ceremony
The ceremony, hosted by former international rugby referee Nigel Owens, announced winners across 12 categories, with Raff Lab also taking the overall prize. Among them was 13-year-old Joe Rajapaksha, who won the Youth Climate Action Champion Award for the second consecutive year.
Wadham College was named Sustainable Further Education School/College of the Year, Witney Town Council won the Biodiversity and Ecology Award, and Harwell Science and Innovation Campus won the Green Building and Design Award. The full list spans schools, businesses, councils and community groups, showing how broad local climate action has become.
The recognition adds to a growing list of climate champions celebrated this year. Watan News recently reported on 25 youth-led climate groups winning $1 million each in a global emerging champions award, a reminder that champion-led change is happening at every scale, from a single laboratory bench to organisations working across 33 countries.
Why laboratory sustainability matters
Research laboratories use large amounts of disposable plastic, from pipette tips and tubes to petri dishes, and they run freezers and ventilation around the clock. For years, much of that plastic was treated as unrecyclable because of contamination rules, and energy use was seen as fixed.
The Dunn School Green Group has been challenging that assumption for years. In 2022 it jointly won a High Sheriff’s Climate Action Heroes award, and at that time it was estimated that the Dunn School’s LEAF-accredited laboratories would save 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year. The Oxford award suggests that steady, volunteer-led work inside departments can now win city-wide recognition.
FAKTA: Oxford Climate Awards 2026 at a glance
- Overall winner: Raff Lab, Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford
- Also won: Innovation in Climate Action Award
- Climate Action Champion 2026: Dr Saroj Saurya, Raff Lab laboratory manager and chair of the Dunn School Green Group
- Ceremony: Oxford Town Hall, 15 October 2026; third annual awards
- Key result: Almost all laboratory plastic recycled or reused; savings of at least £15,000 a year
- Why it matters: Judges praised methods other Oxford laboratories can copy
The Oxford win is a practical lesson for research institutions everywhere: climate action does not always need a breakthrough invention. Sometimes it needs a team willing to rethink bins, freezers and commuting, and to keep at it for years.
