Operating refrigeration and air conditioning systems creates a carbon footprint, both from direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions:
Direct: the leakage of refrigerant gases to the atmosphere
Indirect: CO2 released from system energy consumption.
A growing focus on the environmental impact of refrigerants is fuelling demand for refrigeration solutions that can provide satisfactory cooling performance with a lower impact on global warming. This is propelling environmentally friendly refrigeration solutions to the top of the corporate sustainability agenda. In addition, local legislation is increasingly targeting refrigerant gases with high Global Warming Potential (GWP).
Many HFC refrigerants have medium to high GWP and therefore contribute to global warming if released to the atmosphere. Consequently, legislation and operational best practices have increasingly looked towards reducing the impact of these gases through a number of aspects including:
the use of refrigerant gases with a lower GWP
reducing leak rates
correct end-of-life refrigerant recovery and waste management.
A key example of legislation which impacts on the use of HFCs includes the EU f-gas legislation.
Linde Support: Finding the Route that Suits You Best
We can support you in meeting these goals and advise you on the options available:
Convert your existing system to use lower GWP HFCs. We offer a number of lower GWP HFC solutions, such as the use of R407A or R407F instead of R404A
Change your refrigeration or air conditioning equipment to run on very low GWP refrigerants, such as HFOs and natural refrigerants
Continue to operate your existing system utilising our reclaim, recovery and waste management services.