Last month, members of German trade body HDE committed to reducing their use of ozone and climate-harming HVAC&R technologies. Counting Lidl, Edeka, Aldi Nord, Aldi Süd, Kaufland, Globus, Metro Group, Rewe and Tegut among its members, HDE is home to some of the biggest supermarket chains in Europe.
In response to the COP21 climate talks in Paris last December, the supermarket chains have put lowering their carbon emissions at the heart of a joint declaration on climate protection. As part of their plan, they have decided to invest €370m this year in energy-efficiency measures to prevent additional climate change. Use of natural refrigerants to help stop the destruction of the ozone layer is a central pillar of their strategy alongside wider uptake of renewable technologies and the introduction of energy-saving measures to further combat climate change.
Lidl has committed to using propane for all new plug-in refrigerated units throughout its German stores and is committed to rolling out R290 for all future installations across Europe.ALDI, meanwhile, currently uses CO2 in 27% of its stores and hopes to increase this proportion in future.
Collectively, the HDE members expect these policies to reduce their CO2 emissions by 110 million kg and to reduce their power consumption by 200,000 MWh (equivalent to a the power consumption of a large European city).
