During this time of year, it’s cold here in the Midwest and as I type this, there is at least 5″ of fresh snow on the ground outside. Even though it’s sunny, there is a nasty nip in the air from a stiff breeze that won’t go away for the day or even into tonight.
This time of year is also associated with the common cold of aching, sneezing, coughing and a few other ailments Robitussin mentions in their commercials.
And after mentioning all of that, I’m not even writing about either, but I felt an introduction to the title was needed.
What I’m actually talking about is the recent launch of the GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration Partnership by the U.S. EPA and ten large supermarkets and suppliers. Very few people realize the energy intensity — and thus climate footprint — of refigeration. I’ve even heard that Wal-Mart’s second biggest expense is energy usage, second only to employee wages.
Greenchill has set their sites on promoting better technologies, practices that protect the ozone and strategies to reduce greenhouse gases. According to the EPA, equipment improvement design and service could reduce refigerant emissions by one million metric tons of carbon per year, which is equal to taking 800,000 automobiles off the road a year.
Even Coke has figured out that if they replace all of their soft drink machines with higher efficient equipment, they could reduce the carbon output equal to 750,000 automobiles. They even had Pepsi, McDonalds, Unilever and other BIG companies — not to mention GreenPeace – form a partnership called Refrigerants Naturally.
So all in all, if industries get on the same page, a better cold could be in our future for the future.