Kroger report shows steps forward on climate-warming refrigerants, says Green America

Following the release of Kroger’s 2024 ESG report, the nonprofit Green America said it welcomes small steps forward and called on the company to take more serious action to address hydrofluorocarbon emissions from its stores’ refrigeration systems.

Hydrofluorocarbons are a potent greenhouse gas with thousands of times more global warming impact than carbon emissions, the organizatoin said in a news release.

In the new report, the company’s stated climate impact goals remain a 30% reduction from the company’s 2018 baseline. However, it showed Kroger’s market-based Scope 1 and 2 emissions actually rose 3.8% year over year from 2022 to 2023, the release said.

Regarding refrigerants, which remain Kroger’s largest source of direct emissions, the company said it is committing to move to carbon dioxide refrigerants at new stores, but it states it is only converting existing stores to lower global warming potential systems that can still have many times the climate impacts of natural refrigerants.

Kroger is transitioning stand-alone refrigerators to ultra-low global warming potential — or GWP — propane refrigerants, with more than 15,000 free-standing units using propane. The company’s rollout of infrared leak detectors to all stores is increasing, but its 100% rollout target is delayed from 2024 to 2026, according to the release, which added that Kroger overall continues to trail Aldi, Whole Foods and Target in its commitments to phasing out hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants.

“Kroger, a leading grocery chain in the U.S., is taking minor steps forward on refrigerants," said Dan Howells, climate campaigns director for Green America. "But its latest partial response to protecting the communities it serves from climate change will only continue to endanger the company’s reputation, bottom line and customers. Kroger must show the company is taking serious actions on phasing out [hydrofluorocarbons] from all its stores.”

Kroger recently announced that, starting in 2025, new stores will adopt a natural CO2 with low GWP. However, Green America said the company must do more to eliminate HFCs from existing stores.

Kroger has stated that transitioning to ultra-low GWP refrigerant has the potential to reduce per-store emissions by more than 200 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually. This would translate to 550,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent if all of its 2,750 stores moved to ultra-low GWP systems, which is approximately 40% of the company’s current total emissions from refrigerants, the release said.

Green America said it and its members are urging Kroger to adopt ultra-low GWP refrigeration in all of its nearly 2,800 stores by 2035 with interim targets to cut out hydrofluorocarbons and acknowledge that this requires transitioning to refrigerants with a GWP less than 150, not the 1,400 GWP standard the company has put forward. In the meantime, Kroger must adopt robust goals to further reduce leaks from existing hydrofluorocarbons equipment, the organization said.