Green America has partnered with the Environmental Investigation Agency to bring you a new way to take action for people and the planet: support the growing movement to eliminate harmful super pollutants called HFCs from our supermarkets.
The food in our supermarkets is kept cool with substances called refrigerants. The most common refrigerants are hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), super pollutants that leak out and devastate our climate.
HFCs have thousands of times the warming capacity of CO2, and they are the fastest growing greenhouse gas.
The U.S. supermarket sector has lagged behind other developed countries in cooling without super pollutant HFCs, but a few supermarkets are using sustainable HFC-free alternatives.
In the map below, click on a climate-friendly supermarket near you to send a letter thanking them for being HFC-free! Don’t see a climate-friendly store near you? Urge for more HFC-free supermarkets!
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About the Map
This map shows HFC-free supermarkets around the world. HFCs, or hydrofluorocarbons, are 'super pollutants' - human-made greenhouse gases thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide, used mainly as refrigerants in cooling. The map depicts the adoption of HFC-free technologies in supermarkets in the U.S. and around the world. Currently submissions received do not represent the significant extent of HFC-free technology uptake in Canada and Europe. Europe has thousands of HFC-free supermarkets, in part because of EU legislation that phases-down HFCs.
If you would like to investigate your store and add it to the map, follow these easy steps.
About the Data
The data that power this map are collected by EIA and based on publicly available information, or where indicated, crowdsourced by citizen investigators. All crowdsourced data is categorized based on the best available information. A store is indicated as HFC-free if there are no HFCs in the central refrigeration system. Since refrigeration systems can use a combination of coolants, stores submitted by citizen investigators will not be marked as HFC-free unless confirmed by the company or industry experts. The map is continuously updated and store locations added as they become available.
About the Creators
This map was conceptualized and created by EIA. The code for this map was created by Bill Broderick and Ionatan Kuperwajs using mapbox-gl-js. It is licensed with a MIT license, and source code can be viewed on our github. Thanks for visiting!
Environmental Investigative Agency (EIA) is an independent non-profit campaigning organization dedicated to identifying, investigating, and implementing solutions to the world’s most pressing environmental problems.
ScAAN is a New York-based group of scientists who use their expertise in partnership with organizations that are creating positive social change.
In the map below, you can find stores that are climate-friendly and see which stores are still using climate-damaging gases. Don’t see a climate-friendly store near you? Urge for more HFC-free supermarkets!
This map is undergoing continuous updates based on publicly available information or data shared specifically with EIA.
The Fashioning Accountability and Building Real Institutional Change (FABRIC) Act, advocated by a powerful coalition of garment workers, NGOs, and businesses, was reintroduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. on September 15, 2023.
