Sainsbury's, Britain's third-biggest supermarket chain, will tomorrow announce plans to cut its carbon footprint by one-third by 2030, by changing its fridge technology.
The retailer will stop using so-called F-gases, pumped through the fridges to cool them down, and will instead use carbon dioxide, which is less polluting.
"Fridges are by far and away the biggest source of CO2 emissions in any supermarket, through both the energy required to power them and the refrigerants themselves," Justin King, chief executive of Sainsbury's, will say at the Environment Agency's conference in London.
The company plans to convert 135 of its 800 stores by 2014, with the rest being ready by 2030. It said that if all UK supermarkets followed suit, their combined annual carbon emissions would be reduced by the equivalent of the annual emissions of 350,000 households, or the entire city of Birmingham.
Sainsbury's will also alert the government about a skills shortage in green engineering. "A serious barrier preventing other companies from following our lead is a lack of skilled engineers to build and maintain these units," King said.
Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer were the only two supermarkets to receive the highest A rating in a league table compiled by Consumer Focus, which ranks food retailers according to how green they are, and to be published tomorrow.
Mike Childs, campaign director for Friends of the Earth, said: "We welcome the initiative – it's a big step for Sainsbury's. [But] supermarkets' carbon footprint extends far beyond their stores. Big retailers like Sainsbury's have their own products and they could do far more to make sure those are produced with a minimum carbon footprint."
