Supermarket giant pledges to convert stores to green fridges

Nov 9 2009 Liverpool Daily Post

SUPERMARKET Sainsbury’s has underlined its green credentials with a crackdown on environmentally damaging refrigerators.

Chief executive Justin King told an Environment Agency conference it plans to switch to carbon-dioxide fridges in all its stores by 2030.

CO2 fridges are far less harmful to the environment than the hydrofluorocarbon units in general use.

Sainsbury’s – the UK’s third biggest supermarket – plans to convert the first 135 of its 800 stores by 2014.

The supermarket says switching to CO2 fridges would slash the carbon footprint from its current store base by around a third.

Mr King said: “Fridges are by far and away the biggest source of CO2 emissions in any supermarket through both the energy required to power them and the refrigerants themselves.

“If all supermarkets in the UK switched to this sort of refrigeration, the reduction in CO2 emissions would amount to around 2m tonnes a year.”

From next year all new stores opened by Sainsbury’s will use CO2 fridges as standard, Mr King said.