October 12, 2008—Ben & Jerry’s is introducing a cleaner, greener freezer for testing in the US with the hope that it will eventually be approved for long-term use. The company announced the launch of a pilot project testing hydrocarbon-based freezers, which it says present great environmental benefits by minimizing the freezers’ impact on global warming, and are reportedly an estimated 10-15 percent more energy efficient than HFC freezers.
For years, the Vermont ice cream maker has pursued alternatives to greener freezers, working with parent company Unilever, Greenpeace, and others. The company has focused on hydrocarbon freezing for the past year, which the company says has become commonplace in Europe and is currently allowed in every country except the US. Greenpeace developed the technology for GreenFreeze refrigerators, which now number more than 300 million in the world.
The freezers use propane, which is a hydrocarbon, as a refrigerant instead of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are reportedly thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide. Ben & Jerry’s had to have the freezers approved by Underwriters Laboratories because the propane is flammable, but Unilever says it has no recorded incidents of accidents caused by any of the 270,000 hydrocarbon freezer cabinets it operates around the world.
Ben & Jerry’s will test approximately 50 freezers this fall, with approval to test up to 2,000 freezers in the next few years. For more information visit Ben & Jerry’s Hydrocarbon: The New Cool! site.
