Climate change and global warming have been in the media increasingly over the last few months as the world readies itself for the summit on climate change in Copenhagen this December. As the date for the United Nations summit draws nearer, protesters and activists have been trying to stir up increased talks and awareness about the issue of climate change in an effort to put pressure on world leaders to get a binding resolution by the end of the summit. Although it is doubtful that such a resolution is reached, there will certainly be new guidelines for specific industries and changes that will have to be made. Some businesses are being pro-active and making the changes now in expectation of future regulation and change.
One such business is Sainsbury’s, which has decided to change the ways that it keeps food cold and reduce its carbon footprint. The store will become the first supermarket in the United Kingdom to disallow the use of F-gases, or hydrofluorocarbons in its coolers and will instead use carbon dioxide to coot its food. Environmental lobbyists have long called for the disuse of such gases which are far more for the environment than carbon dioxide. In fact, experts say that F-gases are more than one thousand times more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide.
Ironically F-gases first became popular in the 1990’s when the chief environmental concern was damage to the ozone layer. What experts soon discovered was that F-gases were even worse. Environmental lobbyists are calling for a worldwide ban on the gases starting in the year 2015.
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