Unilever, Coca Cola & McDonalds pledge HFC-free production

Unilever Ice Cream company says it is committed to buying only HFC-free freezers from 2005. The freezers have already been introduced in Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK, and the company claims it will have around 15,000 HFC-free cabinets in its fleet by the end of 2004.

Similarly, Coca-Cola claims that by the 2004 Olympics in Athens, it will no longer purchase new cold drink equipment that uses HFCs. The company has also pledged to reduce the energy consumption of individual equipment by 40 to 50 per cent over the next ten years.

The new freezers use the hydrocarbon, propane as refrigerant. Hydrocarbons are natural gases that do not harm the ozone layer and have virtually no impact on climate change. The HFC (hydrofluorocarbons) gases they replace are not ozone depletors like traditional refrigerants such as CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and HCFCs (hydrochlorofluorocarbons), but do contribute to global warming.

These gases were introduced by the refrigeration industry following the discovery of the ozone hole in 1986, which forced the banning of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) Greenpeace describes the move now as an environmental case of 'out of the frying pan into the fire.'

Unilever says that laboratory trials suggest the hydrocarbon freezers are also more energy efficient, using up to 15 per cent less energy to keep ice cream at the right temperature, compared with other models. Longer-term trials in the Australian market showed a 9 per cent reduction in energy use compared with HFC cabinets. Although hydrocarbon refrigerants have been available in household freezers for some time, Unilever claims it is the first company to use them on a large scale for commercial freezer cabinets.

Unilever has been working in close co-operation with Greenpeace in the development of this new technology since 1996. The company successfully trialled 50 hydrocarbon freezers at the 2000 Sydney Olympics in response to Greenpeace's Greenfreeze campaign and its drive to 'green' the games.

This campaign was started in 1992. The pressure group got together scientist to develop refrigeration using natural gases to avoid both depleting the ozone layer and fuelling global warming. Greenpeace claims that today there are over 100 million Greenfreeze refrigerators in the world, produced by all the major European, Chinese, Japanese and Indian manufacturers. The concept is now available in most major markets with the exception of North America.

But while Greenfreeze technology gained a foothold in the domestic market in the late 1990's, Greenpeace says that large commercial users continued to use refrigeration that causes global warming. In the run up to the Sydney Olympics in 2000 the organisation targeted big refrigeration users such as Unilever, Coke and McDonalds, all Olympic sponsors, to live up to the guidelines of the green games which excluded HFC's.

"Today is a significant day in the fight against climate change,"​ said Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace UK. "Unilever has shown genuine commitment to the environment and genuine business leadership. This sends a powerful message to the rest of the industry that climate-friendly technology is available and must now be used."​

The food industry is now under consistent pressure to establish environmentally friendly principles, from both pressure groups and legislators. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) for example is one of the policies being introduced across Europe to tackle emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and combat the serious threat of climate change. The scheme comes into force on 1 January 2005.

But as organisations such as Greenpeace point out, more action needs to be taken. A recent survey of attitudes to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme suggests that many companies are not sufficiently prepared. Even though no firm thinks that the EU ETS will be scrapped, only 51 per cent think that they will be ready on time.

The report, from LogicaCMG, illustrates that although many manufacturers are aware of the legislation, action has been slower than words. For although the EU ETS is a board level issue at 66 per cent of companies questioned, only 36 per cent have so far set a budget to move to full compliance.