Coca-Cola to Deploy 100K HFC-Free Coolers
By GreenBiz Staff
Created 2008-05-27 16:00
BEIJING, China — The Coca-Cola Co. plans by 2010 to have 100,000 hydrofluorocarbon-free refrigerators and vending machines operating around the world.
The announcement came from CEO Neville Isdell at a Greenpeace-organized conference in Beijing this week, according to Cox News Service.
The machines will be cooled with compressed carbon dioxide instead of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are more potent than CO2 in terms of trapping heat. Coca-Cola operates about 10 million vending machines and coolers worldwide.
Coca-Cola has spent about $40 million researching cleaner cooling technology, and has deployed HFC-free vending machines at major events in recent years.
For the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics, Coca-Cola, along with Unilever, McDonald's, Greenpeace and the United Nations Environment Program, created the Refrigerants Naturally coalition to eliminate the use of HFCs.
Coca-Cola used HFC-free machines for the Torino 2006 Winter Olympics and the 2006 World Cup. The company has committed to using only HFC-free coolers for the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics. For the event, Coca-Cola will deploy more than 6,300 units that have HFC-free insulation and refrigerant along with technology to make them 35 percent more energy efficient than previous vending machines.
