Not a single major food retailing chain in Canada or only two in the United States got a passing mark (50%) when it comes to reducing hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) emissions produced by the cooling systems in their stores (primarily refrigerators and freezers). According to the Climate-Friendly Supermarket Initiative, “Hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, are ‘super pollutants’ - human-made greenhouse gases with global warming potentials (GWP) thousands of times higher than the same amount of carbon dioxide.”
The Climate-Friendly Supermarket initiative will tell you, as a citizen, how to evaluate what’s going on in your local supermarket and what policy changes you should be asking the chain’s C-suite to make. And this is not just an American or Canadian initiative - see the map for where other citizens, just like you, are learning about the role their local supermarket is playing in HFC emissions and how to get them to adopt more climate friendly approaches.
As major local employers and often anchors for malls or shopping centers, big supermarket chains have a major role to play in reducing GHG emissions. Help them see the change you’d like them to enact.