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MIPIGGS Newsletter * Businesses Turning Green In Europe But Not In The US * Pressure Increases Over Climate * Coca-Cola cuts fridge F-gases - But Not In the US * Companies Press Tony Blair For Tougher Climate Action * 'Plan to limit supermarkets' CO2 emissions' * HFCs Double in France * US Emissions Growing * Changes To Roles and Responsibilities for F gases in UK * Europe Finalises F-Gas Laws * Weak Start To EU Regulation Of F-Gases Businesses Turning Green In Europe But Not In The US With growing public and political concern at climate change in many countries, there are increasing signs of progressive businesses breaking away from climate-deniers and foot-draggers on emissions. But actual progress on f-gases, thousands of times more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, is uneven and could be much bigger. Here we report on leadership by Coca-Cola and Unilever on f-gases in Europe, while they fail to phase out HFCs in the US, and Coke has slipped on its year 2000 promise to sort out its suppliers to avoid HFCs. That said, at least they are doing something - competitors such as Pepsi and Nestle have not acted at all. Perhaps what this demonstrates more than anything is the need for vigorous government regulation and incentives not just to cap HFC emissions but to help firms collaborate to develop non-f-gas technological solutions, rather than simply relying on campaigners to egg on the few corporate leaders. New pressure is being put on the UK Government by a consortium of leading corporations seeking tighter emission standards to ratchet up innovation and competitiveness. The UK is also considering giving individual C02 emission targets to companies ranging from Tesco to the BBC. Yet in their own operations, Tesco continue to use HFCs on a huge scale. Outside national capitals the European Parliament and many US States are also pressing for stronger action against climate-changing pollutants, while higher oil prices are reinforcing attention to the issue of a shift away from fossil fuels. Companies need to get to grips with the practical issues of supply chains and procurement if their green wishes are to convert to reality. MIPIGGs is writing to leading companies to draw their attention to the potential for businesses to make significant gains in avoiding direct emissions and in reducing associated energy-related emissions by adopting alternatives to f-gases in air conditioning, chilling and refrigeration. In many cases this could also be at a net financial saving - a double dividend for the environment and the company balance sheet. Pressure Increases Over Climate On June 2 the EU Parliament called for a "market transformation" in energy-using products through an action plan to improve EU energy efficiency due from the European commission later this year. The Parliament resolved that the Commission should aim for more than its proposed target of 20% energy savings by 2020 [1]. Research has shown [2] that the most energy efficient domestic refrigeration appliances are hydrocarbon rather than HFC based systems. Coca-Cola cuts fridge F-gases - But Not In the US Ever wondered why 'sustainable development' doesn't work even though governments and big companies espouse it ? Look no further than the case of not using existing technology to eliminate the climate-cooking gases HFCs .Beverage Daily reported on 6 June, that 'nearly all' of Coca Colas new refrigeration equipment for sales and marketing will work without f-gases. According to Beverage Daily, Coca-Cola say 98 per cent of all new purchases of refrigerated sales and marketing equipment would not emit HFCs, potent greenhouse gases. Coca Cola will be buying 1,300 non-HFC refrigerators, which, says Beverage Daily 'marks another step forward in the trend towards environmental responsibility sweeping the food industry'. "This new equipment will emit 75 per cent fewer direct greenhouse gas emissions, as compared to traditional sales equipment on the market today," said Jeff Seabright, Coca-Cola's vice president for environment and water resources. "As this equipment replaces older models being retired from our fleet, it will result in an annual reduction of 30,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions," added Seabright. Wolo Lohbeck of Greenpeace said he hoped Coke's "example will find a lot of imitators in industry and retail". Seabright called on other companies to also commit themselves to sustainable refrigeration. Coca Cola has also installed 2,000 beverage coolers for this year's football world cup in Germany using CO2 as a coolant instead of HFCs. These appliances are also more energy efficient than f-gas systems. In fact the 1,300 refrigerators turn out to be HFC-free in terms of insulation, not refrigerant. Welcome but hardly revolutionary. Also, Coke is in fact talking [3] about 1300 different models of refrigerated cabinet, not 1300 units total. Coke has around 9 million units globally so an annual turnover of somewhere over half million per year might be reasonable. There are arguably two shortcomings to Coca Cola's approach. First, they are using 'transcritical' CO2 as an alternative coolant to HFCs when they could be using the cheaper and widely-available hydrocarbon systems. Neither results in HFC emissions but HC or hydrocarbons run in over 120 million domestic refrigerators worldwide and are standard in Europe. Some say these could be introduced on a much larger scale and much more quickly than the CO2 systems. Nick Cox of Earthcare products explains that "At present only Sanyo are producing commercial quantities of hermetic CO2 compressors. Danfoss are at the semi commercial stage. Embraco now have preproduction samples, so hopefully a third supplier will mean that commercial quantities enter the market and prices may start to fall." He adds: "It's difficult to see why the EU market for small integral cabinets should switch to CO2 when HCs are cheaper and easier to use. Any breakthrough for CO2 is going to have to come in the US market where HCs are prohibited". Others note that CO2 could be a good solution for some of the larger vending machines where HC charge sizes might be a barrier. Second, none of the three companies taking 'leadership' in phasing out HFCs have made a dent in the problem in North America, where understanding of the f-gas problem is primitive compared to parts of Europe. According to industry sources neither Coke nor Unilever has taken steps to avoid HFCs in the large US market. Globally Unilever has gone much further than Coca Cola and purchased 100,000 chilling units with natural refrigerants (in this case hydrocarbons) as against Coke's 4,000 pieces and McDonald's two lonely HFC-free stores in Denmark. The hydrocarbon-based domestic fridges now standard in Europe are similar to the units used by firms like Coke for selling cold drinks, except the latter have a glass-door front. Single door cabinets are already on the market using less than 150 grams of HCs and with the advent of micro-channel condensers, double door cabinets could now be produced if the market demanded them. Technically, what Coke or Unilever can do in Europe, they could do in the vast North American market, but technical standards in the US are written so as to protect the vested interests of the powerful and influential F gas lobby. The same goes for McDonalds, who would be in a pole position to bring about sweeping change in the US. Privately the companies blame difficulties with suppliers. In the US, manufacturers, suppliers and service companies are simply less interested in helping solve the climate issue, and regulations set in line with the interests of the HFC manufacturers effectively rule out use of hydrocarbons. Doug Parr of Greenpeace says: "Coke are trying to standardize their procurement process to ensure efficiency gains. They are not happy with using HCs owing to the situation in US where a great deal of their business remains and they would be unable to deploy - even domestic refrigeration isn't hydrocarbon-based there. Unilever are not deploying hydrocarbons in the US. So the question is whether they should be developing a two-stream approach on purchasing. The basic reason they aren't doing is that in the US context they are finding it hard to bring suppliers to the table and work on it - McDonalds is working doing all its development and testing work in Europe because they can work with people who realize that climate change is a genuine issue - in the US they don't". Others point out that while the companies blame local culture, market failures and regulations, very large firms can make markets and influence suppliers and regulations if they really want to. Companies like Coke may claim they seek standardisation of purchasing but they don't practice this in other fields. They buy right-hand drive vehicles for Japan, UK, Indonesia - and left-hand ones in the US for example. It seems CocaCola has also failed to live up to the promise made under pressure from Greenpeace at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. In June 2000, CocaCola announced that it would phase out the use of the potent greenhouse gas hydroflurocarbons (HFCs) in refrigeration by the Athens Olympic Games in 2004. It was also to expand its research into refrigeration alternatives and insist that suppliers announce specific time schedules to use only HFC-free refrigeration in all new cold drink equipment by 2004. Coke has now revised its timeline to 2010. MIPIGGs believes that with corporate collaboration under much better government leadership and incentives to develop alternatives of the sort that was focused on the phase out of CFCs, this sort of limited piecemeal progress could be significantly improved upon. Companies Press Tony Blair For Tougher Climate Action Similar inconsistencies - do what we say rather than what we do - emerged at the well publicised 6 June initiative by leading businesses the UK. Tesco and other high profile firms met UK Prime Minister Tony Blair at Downing Street to urge tougher action on climate change. Global players such as Shell and Vodafone authored a call call for tighter greenhouse gas restrictions. The initiative was coordinated through the Prince of Wales's Business and the Environment Programme [4]. The 'Corporate Leaders Group' which made the call includes: ABN Amro, AWG, BAA, BP, Cisco Systems, F&C Asset Management, HSBC, John Lewis Partnership, Johnson Matthey, Scottish Power, Shell, Standard Chartered Bank, Sun Microsystems. In sharp contrast to Exxon and the other backers of the US CEI (Competitive Enterprise Institute) which is running a US media campaign welcoming CO2 as 'life giving' and opposing emission cuts, these businesses argue that action is needed to reduce emissions, and that businesses will benefit from meeting stronger limits by becoming more efficient and competitive. The businesses letter to Tony Blair argues that a low-carbon future should be "a strategic business objective for UK plc as a whole". However, it points out that at present "the private sector and governments are in a 'Catch 22' situation with regard to tackling climate change, in which governments feel limited in their ability to introduce new climate change policy because they fear business resistance, while companies are unable to scale up investment in low carbon solutions because of the absence of long-term policies". The firms could however be open to criticism about their own actions. While it has one or two demonstration stores which use non-HFC systems, the bulk of Tesco's stores use HFCs, which are over a thousand times as potent as CO2 as a greenhouse gas. MIPIGGs is writing to the Corporate Leaders Group, and to UK supermarket ASDA, urging them to convert all their refrigeration, air conditioning and chilling to non-HFC systems. In a letter to Terry Leahy of Tesco on 8 June, MIPIGGs wrote: "MIPIGGs very much welcomes your initiative with Mr Blair but this is not environmentally compatible with continued use of HFCs". ASDA is the UK arms of Walmart, which in October 2005 announced its intention [5] to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, to create zero waste and to sell products that sustain our resources and environment. Walmart CEO Lee Scott said: "There is a technological revolution going on out there with respect to buildings, heating, cooling, compressors, lighting, refrigeration and more. Wal-Mart has always been a technological leader. And we are going to do it again with our stores. We want to eliminate 30 percent of the energy used by our stores." If Walmart used ammonia or hydrocarbon systems instead of HFCs, it could potentially save significant amounts of CO2 emissions from energy as well as avoiding HFCs. 'Plan to limit supermarkets' CO2 emissions' This was the headline of a report in the UK Guardian newspaper May 5 2006 [6]. In proposals put to Ministers, many UK companies and organisations with an energy bill of over £15,000 a year could have to restrict 'carbon dioxide' by meeting CO2 emissions or paying for additional permits. The Guardian cited Tesco and the BBC as examples. The plans are intended to set up a domestic UK carbon market, mirroring the European carbon-trading scheme applying to heavy industry and the energy sector. MIPIGGs is writing to Secretary of State David Milliband to urge him to include f-gases in the scheme, and pointing out that non-HFC systems are in any event more energy efficient. Companies such as supermarkets currently escape the European scheme because much of their greenhouse gas pollution comes from electricity use. The EU trading scheme is limited to companies with high direct on-site carbon emissions. Tesco and Asda include their HFC emissions in their accounting to the existing voluntary UK Emissions Trading Scheme. The Guardian added that the plan was commissioned by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and drawn up by two firms of independent consultants, Nera and Enviros. It would require new legislation, and could not be be introduced before 2009. The French organisation CITEPA reports a sharp rise in HFC pollution in France [7]. 'In 2004, HFC emissions reached 11 204 kt CO2 equivalent (CO2e) and have sharply increased since 1990 (+206%, i.e. +7 545 kt CO2e)' say CITEPA. Main emitters in 2004 (top 5 of total emissions): CITEPA reports that in the manufacturing industry sector, from 1990 to 1993, the chemical industry was the main source of emissions arising from synthesis of HFCs and HCFC-22 producing HFC-23. There were reductions 1992-4 due to abatement technologies but an upward trend in emissions since then. The main reason, says CITEPA, is the substitution of CFCs by HFCs. Refrigeration/air conditioning from road transport comprised 17% of total emissions in 2004 and rose sharply from 1993. The residential/tertiary sector occipies first place for emissions at 58% of total emissions in 2004. From 2002, a new source of HFC emissions was identified : the use of HFCs in manufacturing industries as blowing agents for polystyrene foam (replacing HCFCs which are banned since they damage the ozone layer). HFC-365mfc have been used for polyurethane foam (PUR foam) since HCFCs were banned in 2003. HFCs escape during the foam's manufacture and its life time. 'It is important to stress that the chemical nature of the emitted HFCs has a significant impact on emissions in CO2 equivalent' says CITEPA. Note : for more information about refrigeration and air conditioning, refer to the report produced by the "Ecole des Mines de Paris", center for energy and processes, (http://www-cenerg.ensmp.fr/english/index.html).According to the US Energy Information Administration, between 1990 and 1997 US emissions of f-gases grew 68.3% [8] Elsewhere [9] a figure of 57% is reported, 'primarily due to increases in HFC emissions'. Changes To Roles and Responsibilities for F gases in UK Following the May local Government elections in the UK the Prime Minister reshuffled some of the Government. Secretary of State for Trade and Industry - Rt Hon Alastair Darling MP moves from being Secretary of State for Transport and Scotland and is responsible for the Dept as a whole. Malcolm Wicks MP remains as the Energy Minister. Margaret Hodge MP is the Minister of State for Industry and the Regions and Responsible for Corporate Responsibility. Ian McCartney MP is the Minister of State for Trade, Investment and Foreign Affairs (Joint with FCO) and responsible for Trade Policy, Competition, Consumer affairs and Corporate governance. Lord Sainsbury of Turville is the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Science and Innovation. Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government - Rt Hon Ruth Kelly MP This is the Dept formally known as ODPM where John Prescott was in charge with David Milliband as the Minister for Local Government. Ruth Kelly MP moves from being the Secretary of State for Education and Yvette Cooper MP remains as the Minister of State. She is responsible for Climate Change issues in addition to housing and planning. Rt Hon John Prescott MP will work towith the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for the Environment on developing the post Kyoto agenda. Baroness Andrews OBE - Under Secretary of State deals with DCLG Business in the Lords. Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - the Rt Hon David Miliband moves from the ODPM to DEFRA where he is also represents the UK at the EU Environment Council; and leads for the UK in other international negotiations on sustainable development and climate change. Rt Hon Margaret Beckett MP moves to be Foreign Secretary and has already made several announcements in her new job about international climate work such as the appointment of a new climate change representative (John Ashton). Elliot Morley MP, the widely respected Minister of State for the Environment leaves to be an influential backbencher as Michael Meacher MP did before him and is replaced by Ian Pearson MP, formally a Minister at the DTI who's responsibilities include UK, EU and International climate change issues, sustainable energy issues, sustainable consumption and production, Sustainable Development (includes sustainable procurement), business and the environment, environmental liability, and Sustainable Communities. He is also Chair of the Sustainable Development Ministers. Treasury Ed Balls MP - an ex adviser to the Chancellor Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP comes in as Economic Secretary and John Healy MP remains as Financial Secretary and his responsibilities include environmental taxation, science policy and science R+D tax credit. Footnote on Europe: In April [10] the two new EU laws on f-gases were approved by the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The deal proceeded after the European Commission withdrew a last-minute objection to allowing Member States to uphold existing national measures stricter those in one of the EU measures. This mainly applies to Denmark and Austria. The agreement was welcomed by EP Environment Committee Rapporteur Avril Doyle MEP. The Greens regretted that the measures do not require use of alternatives, saying: "when more environmentally-friendly alternatives exist - and this is the case for most applications - there is no excuse not to use them." Ends Daily reported that during the debates Green and left wing MEPs protested against the European commission's increasing use of high-level policy groups, such as that recently established to advise on competitiveness, energy and the environment. They said the bodies were unbalanced and dominated by industry. Later the same month [11], the EU Council of Ministers formally approved final versions of both the Regulation on f-gases and a directive on f-gases in automotive air conditioning (see previous newsletters), the last step before publication in the Official Journal and entry into force. Both were agreed early this year by representatives of the Council and the European parliament Weak Start To EU Regulation Of F-Gases What may be the first evidence of problems with the EU's reliance on the idea of 'containment' for its new f-gas Regulation has emerged from a consultants report and a meeting of industry represenattives in Brussels on 1 June. The report by consultants ICF [12] and industry discussions with the European Commission (EC) [13] reveal that no other country is achieving the standards of leak-checking and limitation set under the Dutch STEK system. STEK was the rationale for the Commission's reliance on containment as the basis of the Regulation. The alternative promoted by NGOs and others was substitution with technologies that do not use f-gases at all and hence run no risks of polluting the atmosphere with HFCs or other f-gases. So far only 10 of 18 EU countries responding to the ICF survey reported any leak checkingat all, and none of those met the Dutch limit of 1% leak per year. Just two States, Sweden and the Netherlands, have specific technical procedures for f-gas leak checking. Only Spain and Austria reported laws on f-gas leaks in fire systems, while maximum leakage rates eg for refrigeration systems were set in Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Sweden and Luxembourg but range up to 10% per year. The EC's system relies on standard setting procedures to achieve pollution control. Based on this response, the picture is patchy at best, and leak rates seem to be set very high. This will engender little confidence that the containment system will work, especially given evidence available before the rules were introduced, that containment has already failed [14]. In the autumn the EC is due to produce guidelines on what qualifications technicians need for checking equipment. Conference Commemorates Leader in Green Refrigeration The June biennial conference on natural working fluids was dedicated the memory of innovator the late Gustav Lorentzen of Norway. Professor Lorentzen, an outstanding personality and world-famous refrigeration scientist, was in his last years one of the primary sources of ideas, inspiration and results related to the use of natural refrigerants. "In the present situation, when the CFCs and in a little longer time perspective the HCFCs are being banned by international agreement, it does not seem very logical to replace them by another family of related halocarbons, the HFCs, equally foreign to nature. In any case it must obviously be much preferable to use natural compounds, which are already circulating in quantity in the biosphere and are known to be harmless". [1] Ends Daily ISSUE 2109 - Friday 2 June 2006 For any enquires contact: secretary@mipiggs.org |
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