Sainsbury’s to switch to CO₂ refrigeration in all stores by 2030

Sainsbury's chief executive has announced the retailer’s intention to switch to CO₂ refrigeration in all stores by 2030 at a conference hosted yesterday by the UK Environment Agency. This single move will reduce the company's carbon footprint by around a third. The retailer representative also called on the UK Government to address skills shortages in the green sector.

Speaking at the UK Environment Agency conference yesterday, Sainsbury's chief executive Justin King announced the retailer’s intention to invest in CO₂ refrigeration technology that can cut the company's carbon footprint by around a third.

“This is a big change and over the 20 year or so period it will take us to change all of our refrigeration, it will reduce Sainsbury’s total CO₂ footprint by 30%. So it is the biggest single thing we were able to find in our business to make a difference for this issue”, King maintained after presenting the audience with a slide showing a CO₂ compressor rack.

The announcement was covered widely in the UK press, with newspapers such as the Guardian and the Telegraph reporting on it.

Converting 135 stores to CO₂ by 2014 – all stores by 2030

Sainsbury's is pledging to switch to CO₂ refrigeration in all stores by 2030 and has earmarked the first 135 stores for conversion by 2014. From next year, all major new Sainsbury's developments will use CO₂ refrigeration as standard. The retailer hopes that others will follow its example, as refrigeration is currently the biggest source of total (direct and indirect) emissions in any UK supermarket. “If all supermarkets in the UK switched to this sort of refrigeration, the reduction in CO₂ emissions would amount to around 2m tonnes a year”.

Need for skilled engineers

King further called on the UK Government to address skills shortages in the green sector. "A serious barrier preventing other companies from following our lead, is a lack of skilled engineers to build and maintain these units. We are doing our bit - this initiative will lead to 200 green jobs in the UK through the re-training and hiring of specialist engineers - but business alone can't ensure a sufficient supply of people with the right skills and training”.

"Government needs to seize the opportunity here by helping people re-train to work in the rapidly expanding green sector. We'd like to be in a place where we can use more home grown expertise to reduce UK carbon emissions in line with future targets, instead of looking to other countries for knowledge and innovation."