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Albertsons and Whole Foods reduce harmful refrigerant emissions and garner national awards

Release Date: 09/11/2012
Contact Information: Cyndi Grafe, EPA Public Affairs, 208-378-5771, [email protected]

(Seattle – Sept. 11, 2012)  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) GreenChill Partnership recognized Albertsons and Whole Foods’ efforts to green up refrigeration in their supermarkets, protect the ozone layer, and combat climate change. GreenChill works with supermarkets to use low-impact refrigerants and reduce harmful refrigerant emissions.   The partnership has 54 members with almost 8,000 stores, representing over 20 percent of the supermarket industry.

Whole Foods Market won the GreenChill award for exceeding the company’s challenging emission reduction goals. Even though GreenChill Partners achieve emission rates well below national averages, all partners set ambitious, tough-to-achieve annual goals to continually improve their performance.

“Whole Foods Market has invested enormous time and energy into improving their corporate-wide refrigerant emissions rate,” according to Keilly Witman, GreenChill Partnership Manager. “Everyone who works for the company contributed to this accomplishment.”  

Albertsons, owned by SUPERVALU, earned this year’s Distinguished Partner Award. The Distinguished Partner Award is given to the supermarket partner company that goes above and beyond to advance the mission of the GreenChill Partnership.

“Albertsons is a star GreenChill Partner,” said Witman. “You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone more devoted to the goals of the Partnership.”

EPA estimates that if supermarkets nationwide reduced their emissions to the GreenChill average emissions rate, the industry would eliminate the equivalent of 22 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, equal to removing more than 4.3 million passenger vehicles from the road. This would also help restore the earth’s ozone layer, which protects the earth from the sun’s damaging ultraviolet radiation, a leading cause of skin cancer.

More on EPA’s GreenChill Partnership: https://www.epa.gov/greenchill/