UK supermarkets scandalise the EIA about high global warming refrigerants
[ added 1 February, 2010 ]
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The newly published EIA report ranks retailers by their progress toward natural refrigerants. Waitrose topped the EIA ranking, followed by Tesco and Marks and Spencer. The EIA concludes that the improvement potential of refrigerants outweighs the benefits of carbon savings from cutting back on plastic bags.
The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has published a new report under its Chilling Facts Campaign. The Campaign has been set up by EIA to highlight the global warming impacts of refrigeration and air conditioning gases and promote climate-friendly alternatives. “Chilling Facts 2010 - The Supermarket Refrigeration Scandal Continues” provides an update on progress so far, a ranking of supermarkets with regards to their efforts, as well as recommendations for action for the industry and legislators. Only 2% of UK stores use HFC-free refrigeration
Although last year several retailers commited to eliminate hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) from their stores, progress in terms of actual installations of HFC-free refrigeration technologies has been poor. Chilling Facts 2010 reveals that only 2% of stores belonging to major supermarket retailers are running on HFC-free refrigeration systems. This means that there are currently 46 supermarket stores running on climate-friendly refrigeration, up from just 14 stores in 2009.
High leakage rates are a fact: According to Chilling Facts 2010, the reported leakage (just leakage) of HFCs from UK supermarkets is equivalent to 1.13 million tonnes of CO2 per annum currently. This is like taking over one billion car journeys to your local supermarket or taking a return flight to Australia 300,000 times. The lowest reported leakage rate from supermarkets using HFC centralised systems was about 14% - the highest was 17%.
The EIA’s league table which ranks retailers by their progress toward natural refrigerants, and reduction in emissions was this year topped by Waitrose for its combination of a hydrocarbon refrigeration programme and aggressive targeting of leak reduction. Tesco was placed second for its well-publicised carbon dioxide roll-out plan, but was criticised for not setting a target date for the retailer to become HFC-free.
M&S, which topped the table last year, was placed third this year, and was also marked down for not publishing a date for going HFC-free.
An opportunity to cut store emissions bigger than cutting back on carrier bags
One third of the carbon footprint of supermarkets comes from the use of hydrofluorocarbons" If we can get them to switch to climate- friendly alternatives, it would be vastly more significant than cutting back on carrier bags,” commented Julia Hailes, sustainability consultant and author of The New Green Consumer Guide and supporter of the EIA Chilling Facts campaign. “Some Northern European countries such as Denmark are way ahead of the UK with up to 500 stores running on climate friendly technology, however this is mostly due to legislation introduced by the Danish government”, notes the report. In that light, the EIA is calling for “Government action on introducing legislation to reinforce the deadline for the removal of HFCs from refrigeration among major retailers”.
Funding training on HFC-free refrigeration technologies
Another finding of the survey was the continued shortage of engineers qualified to work with climate-friendly refrigeration. In that respect the EIA is calling for Government and industry funding for training the refrigeration industry in installation and maintenance of climate friendly alternatives so that HFC-free options are even more accessible to supermarket retailers.
The 2010 Chilling Facts league table is as follows:
1. Waitrose
2. Tesco
3. M&S
4. Sainsbury’s
5. Lidl
6. Morrisons
7. Asda
8. Midlands Co-operative
9. Co-op Group
10. Iceland
11. Asda
The detailed results of the the Environmental Investigation Agency’s second supermarket refrigeration survey can be viewed by visiting the Chilling Facts website.
The Chilling Facts II Report can be found here.
