Wallmart making “great progress” reducing emissions
14th August 2019
USA: Walmart says it is making “great progress” in reducing its GHG emissions and will move to using low- and ultra-low GWP in new systems by 2025.
The retailer, which operates over 11,000 outlets in 27 countries, was responding to calls by the US environmental group Green America and the Environmental Investigation Agency for Walmart to cut its HFC refrigerant emissions and release a detailed plan to phase out HFCs.
In a statement to the Cooling Post, Walmart said that managing and improving its air conditioning and refrigeration systems was a high priority and claims to have been the first retailer to set an approved science-based emissions reduction plan to 2025.
“This ambitious plan includes the reduction of refrigeration related GHG emissions. And we are making great progress, reducing our refrigerant related direct emissions by 10% between 2016 and 2018,” the company said. “Globally, we are working both to improve efficiency in current systems and to transition to new systems using refrigerant gases with lower overall environmental impacts.”
It says it is working to reduce refrigerant use and improve performance in existing systems by using common best practices for maintenance and monitoring. A the same time, Walmart is looking for ways to prevent energy waste and improve refrigerant performance in new systems by using common specifications for high-efficiency systems that are less susceptible to leaking.
“Our strategy calls for moving away from high global warming potential (GWP) refrigerant gases, including HFCs, to refrigerant gases with low- and ultra-low GWP for new systems as they come commercially viable by 2025,” Walmart says. “For example, in the US we already operate hundreds of facilities (stores and distribution centres) that are near HFC-free and utilise ultra-low GWP refrigerants including carbon dioxide (CO2) and ammonia (NH3). We continue to use these facilities, along with other laboratory-based tests, to inform the design of our future systems.”
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Walmart urged to cut its HFC emissions – 13 August 2019
USA: Green America, a leading green economy organisation, has joined with the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) in calling on retailer Walmart to cut its HFC refrigerant emissions. Read more…
