Sainsbury's to go greener with carbon dioxide

Sainsbury's is to become the first UK supermarket to ban the use of "super-global-warming" chemicals in its refrigerators – instead cooling its food by carbon dioxide.

By Rowena MasonPublished: 11:34PM GMT 07 Nov 2009
The decision, due to be announced this week by Sir Justin King, the chief executive of Sainsbury's, will come into force as a group of MPs and green campaigners lobby for a ban on so-called F-gas (hydrofluorocarbons) chemicals by 2015.
Experts have calculated that F-gases, the currently used refrigerants, are 1,420 times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide, making the annual leakage from UK supermarkets the equivalent of one billion trips to the shops by car.
The refrigerants became widely used during the 1990s to replace gases that harmed the ozone layer – but have turned out to be equally attacked by environmentalists.
Sainsbury's, which is expected to report first half pre-tax profit on Wednesday of £300m, up 16pc from £259m last year, will make a multi-million pound investment in the new refrigeration. It claims the move will cut overall emissions by one third.
However, Sir Justin has raised fears that Britain's workforce is ill-equipped to deal with the cuts in emissions demanded by the Government, after the supermarket had to ship in engineers from abroad to tackle the move to carbon dioxide refrigeration.
He described the lack of specialist engineers in the UK as a "serious barrier" preventing companies from helping Britain meet its targets on climate change.
"The Government needs to seize the opportunity here by helping people re-train to work in the rapidly expanding green sector," Sir Justin said.
Earlier this year, Asda trialled green refrigeration at its "eco-store" near Liverpool, while Marks & Spencer and Morrisons have said they will not use F-gases in new equipment. So far, no other supermarkets have announced full plans to switch to carbon dioxide as a refrigerant.
Doug Parr, chief scientist of Greenpeace UK, said the Government ought to learn from industry's lead on removing F-gases from the environment, and called on others to make similar pledges.
Carbon-copy supermarkets
The past few years have seen a war among supermarkets claiming to have the greenest stores of them all.
Asda says its Bootle site cuts emissions by 35pc, Sainsbury says its Dartmouth store will reduce emissions by 40pc and Tesco claims its Shrewsbury store lowers emissions by 60pc.
Tesco is considering whether to build its own windfarm to become a zero-carbon business by 2050.
Also, Morrisons wants to cut road miles by 6pc before the end of 2010, M&S aims to make UK & Irish operations carbon neutral in three years and Waitrose will recycle 75pc of all waste by 2012.