History and Achievements

History

• The Refrigerants, Naturally! initiative was launched in 2004 by The Coca Cola Company, Unilever and McDonald's. These companies committed to an HFC-free future during the "Refrigerants, Naturally! Conference 2004", where innovative technologies were showcased.

• In 2005, Refrigerants, Naturally! was the recipient of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Climate Protection Award for their efforts in fighting global warming.

• Other global companies joined the network until now: Carlsberg and PepsiCo.

• In 2008, Refrigerants, Naturally! hosted successfully a side event at the 8th IIR-Gustav Lorentzen Conference on Natural Working Fluid in Copenhagen and presented achievements in natural refrigerants technology to an interested audience of corporate members and supporters, other end-users, suppliers, policy-makers and media.

Together these six companies are reducing their impact on climate change

• by replacing refrigerants with HFC-free refrigerants,
• by using HFC-free insulation material,
• by reducing the energy consumption of new refrigerating equipment.

Achievements

• Over the last years the companies of the Refrigerants, Naturally! initiative have, together with their suppliers, developed, tested and placed equipment using natural refrigerants on the market.

• By early 2009, Unilever has placed more than 400,000 hydrocarbon-based ice cream cabinets throughout Europe, Latin America and Asia. About 42,000 bottle vending machines have been installed in China, Europe and Latin America by The Coca-Cola Company, Carlsberg and PepsiCo, either operating with CO2 or Hydrocarbon as refrigerant. Further, since 2004, McDonald's has opened two completely HFC-free pilot restaurants in Denmark, which allowed it to monitor and test HFC-free equipment and performance.

• Research and development including testing of pilot equipment is ongoing and relevant information is regularly exchanged within the network.