Really cool energy savings

Really cool energy savings

A world-first trial of a refrigerated lorry cooled by liquid nitrogen is just one of the ways we’re cutting emissions while keeping food fresh.

Keeping food fresh on the road is vital to our business, but we also need to reduce harmful emissions. So we’re testing lower-emission cooling methods in our delivery lorries.

Refrigerant gases are our great challenge. The gas most commonly used, known as R-404A, traps nearly 4,000 times as much heat in the earth’s atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2). So we want to move away from it, using alternatives such as liquid nitrogen or even CO2 instead.

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UK retailer currently trialling lorries cooled by CO2 or liquid nitrogen. (You guessed it, it’s us.)

Miles less carbon

In 2016 we became the first ever company to trial a refrigerated delivery truck cooled with a liquid nitrogen engine. This was designed to eliminate all emissions linked to refrigeration.

During the three-month trial, we saved an estimated 1.6 tonnes of CO2 – equal to driving more than 14,500km in a modern family car. We’re now continuing to work with the supplier to give more feedback, with the intention of bringing a successful vehicle to market.

Trailblazing trials

We’ve also been trialling CO2 refrigeration. CO2 works as a natural refrigerant, and we already use it in our stores, depots and other units. But it’s more complex to get it working in lorries because of changing conditions and all the bumping around.

Following a successful 2013 trial of the world’s first CO2-refrigerated trailer, in April 2016 we announced that we’d begun trialling a lorry that can operate at different temperatures, which also uses CO2 as the coolant gas. We’re still the only retailer in the UK working with this technology.

Greener logistics

Our refrigeration initiative is just part of our efforts toward greener logistics – as we try to reduce the impact of the deliveries we make to Sainsbury’s stores each year.

For example, we have 110 dual fuel lorries, making up to 10 per cent of our core fleet. And we re-tread lorry tyres where possible, rather than refitting them. This saves 182kg of CO2 each time.