Towards sustainable retail refrigeration
11th August 2021
USA: Addressing the challenges and accelerating the solutions to achieve a zero-emissions future for grocery refrigeration will be discussed at a free-to-attend webinar next month.
Organised by the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council (NASRC), the Sustainable Refrigeration Summit will bring together commercial refrigeration, energy, environmental, and policy stakeholders from September 27 to October 8.
“Reducing refrigerant emissions is one of the most powerful and cost-effective strategies to achieve zero emissions,” said Danielle Wright, NASRC executive director. “The Sustainable Refrigeration Summit is designed to bring together the technical know-how from the industry with the policies and infrastructure to support a successful transition away from harmful greenhouse gas refrigerants.”
The summit will feature daily live sessions that outline challenges and opportunities to achieve net zero emissions, including the impact of regulations, retailer strategies to reduce emissions, technology options, opportunities for funding and alignment with energy performance goals. In addition, presentations that feature various natural refrigerant technologies will be available on-demand throughout the event.
Participants will gain knowledge on the latest regulatory and industry trends and hear directly from the grocers, industry experts, and policymakers that are shaping the future of sustainable refrigeration.
While “natural” refrigerants, including ammonia, CO2, and hydrocarbons, have zero or near-zero GWP and are future-proof from a regulatory standpoint, according to NASRC they face a unique set of market barriers that have prevented their scaled adoption.
Not only do these technologies come at an upfront cost premium compared to traditional HFC technologies, but “natural” refrigerants are also not a “drop-in” solution and require costly and logistically challenging full system replacement in the over 38,000 existing grocery stores in the US. NASRC’s Sustainable Refrigeration Summit will address these challenges and others to accelerate the solutions needed to achieve zero emissions in grocery stores.
“We can’t reach zero emissions in refrigeration without natural refrigerants,” said Wright. “To overcome the challenges and make meaningful progress we need all hands on deck, and that’s exactly what this summit is designed to do.”
Further information and registration here.
