Reproducibility is known to be one of the biggest issues facing science today — but what is less discussed is its connection to science’s environmental impact, as experiments that aren’t replicable still consume resources. Joanna Marshall-Cook and Martin Farley describe processes that can both improve sustainability in science and help tackle the reproducibility crisis.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$99.00 per year
only $8.25 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Heye, T. et al. The energy consumption of radiology: energy- and cost-saving opportunities for CT and MRI operation. Radiology 295, 593–605 (2020).
Ravilious, K. CERN’s emissions equal to a large cruise liner, says report. Physics World https://physicsworld.com/a/cerns-emissions-equal-to-a-large-cruise-liner-says-report/ (2020).
Jones, N. How to stop data centres from gobbling up the world’s electricity. Nature 561, 163–166 (2018).
UNESCO. The race against time for smarter development. UNESCO https://www.unesco.org/reports/science/2021/en (2021).
Prinz, F., Schlange, T. & Asadullah, K. Believe it or not: how much can we rely on published data on potential drug targets? Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 10, 712 (2011).
Baker, M. 1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility. Nature 533, 452–454 (2016).
Marek, S. et al. Reproducible brain-wide association studies require thousands of individuals. Nature 603, 654–660 (2022).
Urbina, M., Watts, A. & Reardon, E. Labs should cut plastic waste too. Nature 528, 479 (2015).
From exploration to enterprise. Nat. Rev. Phys. 4, 75 (2022).
Mische, S. M. et al. A review of the scientific rigor, reproducibility, and transparency studies conducted by the ABRF research groups. J. Biomol. Tech. 31, 11–26 (2020).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Marshall-Cook, J., Farley, M. The hidden sustainability cost of the reproducibility crisis. Nat Rev Phys 6, 4–5 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-023-00674-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-023-00674-0