Supermarkets accused of freezing plans to tackle chiller emissions

The vast majority of the UK's leading supermarkets are still using fridges and freezers that emit large quantities of greenhouse gases, despite viable alternatives being available and plans to replace older chilling units having been in place for several years.

That is the conclusion of a major new survey from campaign group the Environmental Investigation Agency, which also revealed that a number of supermarkets are reneging on previous commitments to phase out the powerful greenhouse gases hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) and the ozone destroying hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs).

The Chilling Facts 2010 survey ranked the performance of the UK's leading supermarkets in a league table and found that while the number of stores using climate-friendly alternative refrigeration technologies has risen almost threefold in the past year, there are still only 46 stores nationwide that have phased out the harmful gases.

"Though some supermarkets have made a good effort over the last year to tackle the issue of HFCs, the survey results are disappointing, showing that we have a long way to go," said Fionnuala Walravens of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which carried out the survey. "We need serious action and a firm long-term commitment to the elimination of HFCs from the leading supermarket retailers."

Despite efforts to establish itself as one of the UK's greenest retailers, the Co-operative Group was amongst the worst performers with the report finding that it is using HCFCs for refrigeration in 50 per cent of its depots and is still retrofitting some stores with HFC-based refrigeration systems instead of more environmentally friendly alternatives.

Meanwhile, Asda was accused of "reneging on previous commitments to phase out HFCs" and being "worryingly behind the leaders" in its approach to HFC-free stores.

A spokesperson for The Co-operative Group challenged the report's conclusions, arguing that it was "based on dated information and ignores significant recent steps we have taken to reduce refrigerant leakages from our stores, which we cut by almost 30 per cent in 2009".

They added that the company is "robustly progressing" towards removing HCFCs and HFCs from its chillers, arguing that the company had been penalised in the table for openly disclosing emissions data, while some rivals had failed to provide the survey with information.

M&S, Tesco, Sainsbury's, and Waitrose all rated in the top half of the table and have recently made commitments to phase out HFCs and HCFCs. However, the report noted that only M&S and Sainsbury’s had set a date for completely removing HFC systems and that stands at 2030.

Climate-friendly alternatives to HFC-based refrigeration have been widely adopted in countries such as Sweden and Denmark and are being rolled out by a number of multinationals, including McDonalds and Coca-Cola.

Sustainability consultant Julia Hailes, said that the patchy performance of UK supermarkets highlighted the need for the government to intervene and set a date for banning all HFC-based technologies. "Without government leadership, supermarket boards struggle to push the topic of HFC refrigeration to the top of the agenda," she said. They should set and enforce a phase-out date rather than wait to be pushed by the retailers.”

The EIA are calling for EU and national level regulation on HFCs. Current legislation only requires that supermarkets have to check equipment that uses HFCs for leaks.