Sainsbury’s have taken a huge step towards reducing the companies carbon footprint by introducing the world’s first naturally refrigerated trailer to transport their frozen goods. The company is using the new trailer on a trial basis in order see if it is sustainable. The trial is part of the company’s recent review of its transport refrigeration gas and its effort to cut down on its carbon footprint. They have already taken steps towards doing this by introducing its plan to convert all of its stores to natural refrigeration by the year 2030.

It is certainly another positive step by the UK retailer who became the first company to voluntarily begin to phase out all harmful HFC refrigerants. The company has already converted over 160 of its stores to CO2 refrigerant and plans to switch all of its 250 stores to the natural refrigeration system by the end of next year.

Speaking about the company’s decision to make the new changes, Sainsbury’s head of transport operations Nick Davies said “The new carbon dioxide technology has much less of an impact on climate change and we hope it will play a big part in helping us reduce our carbon emissions. We will be monitoring its performance closely and if successful, in line with our replacement plan, it could help us save over 70,000 tonnes of CO2 compared to the current refrigerated trailer fleet.”

The new HFC free trailers have been provided by Carrier Transicold who have been working with Sainsbury’s on the new trial. They have used an altered version of Carrier’s NaturaLINE refrigeration system which had been originally developed to be used for deep sea containers. The president of Carrier Transicold David Appel recently stated “This is the very first time that our NaturaLINE system has been mounted to a box trailer anywhere in the world. It’s a fantastic opportunity to advance Carrier’s natural leadership in environmental technologies, by working closely with Sainsbury’s, one of our largest customers in Europe, to test how the concept performs on the road. It’s also much better news for the environment because natural refrigerant CO2 is non-ozone depleting and has a Global Warming Potential of one.”

It is certainly a positive move from the UK retailer to look at alternatives to harmful HFC refrigerants and perhaps more companies in the future will begin to look at the alternatives such as natural CO2 refrigerants in order to reduce their carbon footprints.