COCA-COLA, McDonalds and Ikea are three of the big names gearing up to face academics and suppliers to report what progress they have made towards phasing out HFC-use.
Representatives from the network of six corporate giants Unilever, Carlsberg, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, McDonalds and IKEA will meet for the 'Refrigerants Naturally-It works!' seminar in Copenhagen on September 8.

Refrigerants, Naturally! is a global initiative of companies who aim to substitute F-gases, (such as CFCs, HCFCs and HFCs) with natural refrigerants with a focus on point-of-sale cooling applications.

At the seminar, the six companies will present the status of natural refrigerant use in different point-of-sale cooling applications, the challenges faced and planned ways forward for going HFC-free.

The key issues when implementing natural refrigerants, such as safety issues and possibilities for application of hydrocarbon technology in large equipment, will also be discussed.

Alan Gerrard, global project leader at Unilever and Eskild Andersen, environmental manager at Carlsberg will speak on the subject of 'Hydrocarbons - for Cleaner Greener Coolers and Freezers'.

Antoine Azar, eKOfreshment program manager at Coca-Cola and Michel Saba, director of equipment development at PepsiCo will present 'HFC-Free Technologies For Cold Drink Equipment'

Speakers Else Krueck, director Environment and CSR, at McDonald’s Europe and Tom Pedersen at IKEA will present 'Natural Refrigerants in a Retail Environment - the IKEA & McDonald's Challenge'.

Following the technical updates, a panel discussion of the corporate members will discuss case studies, lessons learned and best practices.

The Refrigerants Naturally initiative was set up in 2004 with the support of Greenpeace and the United Nations environment programme and began with three companies Unilever, Coca-Cola and McDonalds.

Since 2004 and by Q3 2008, Unilever placed nearly 300,000 hydrocarbon-based ice cream cabinets throughout Europe, Latin America and Asia. More than 15.000 bottle vending machines were installed in China, Europe and Latin America by Coca-Cola, Carlsberg and PepsiCo, (either operating with CO2 or hydrocarbon as refrigerant).

In 2004, McDonalds opened a HFC-free pilot restaurant which allowed the fast food giant to monitor and test HFC-free equipment and performance.

The 'Refrigerants Naturally' seminar takes place at the Gustav Lorentzen conference on Natural Working Fluids in Copenhagen.