F-GAS-Exit: METRO AG honored as Best-in-Sector Food Retail

METRO was honored as the best company in the food retail sector. The jury's statement says:

"The award recognizes METRO's commitment to natural refrigerants in markets such as Russia and China in particular. The installation of China's first transcritical CO2 system in the retail sector at a METRO wholesale store in the Lishuiqiao metropolitan area in Beijing (opened in January 2018) was the first step on the way to installing transcritical cooling systems in all its new Chinese stores by 2025.”

METRO's F-GAS-Exit program is part of the company's commitment to reduce its own CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030 (base year: 2011). By the end of fiscal year 2017, METRO had already reduced its CO2 emissions by 21% through a corresponding mix of measures. Since 2013, METRO has been starting to work intensively to phase out F-gases in refrigeration in all METRO stores worldwide by 2030 and – as far as technically and economically feasible – to replace them with natural refrigerant systems.

Olaf Schulze, Director Energy Management, METRO AG, received the award on Tuesday evening on behalf of the company: "We are very happy about the award and at the same time see it as an incentive to further advance our F-GAS-Exit program. This summer alone we were able to get two new stores in Russia and one remodeled store in Bulgaria running with transcritical cooling. For us, it is above all a great challenge to find the right partners for the installation on site. But we are with unwavering focus on our path because we are convinced that the change to climate-friendly cooling systems is necessary and will also economically be the best option in the long run."

The ATMOsphere Europe conference is organized by shecco, a global market accelerator for natural refrigerant systems, which also publishes the Accelerate Europe magazine and the r744.com website. This is the second time Accelerate Europe organised the awards at the ATMOsphere Europe conference.