Hy-Vee, Inc. announced that the company is partnering with the US EPA’s GreenChill Program to reduce refrigerant emissions and help protect the ozone layer and fight climate change.

“Hy-Vee’s participation in GreenChill underscores the company’s commitment to sustainability in all aspects of our operations,” according to Michael Smith, Hy-Vee’s Director of Real Estate & Sustainability. “From the design and construction of our stores to our energy conservation, waste reduction and product sourcing efforts, Hy-Vee has adopted a host of earth-friendly practices that promote the well-being of customers, employees, communities and the global environment,” Smith says.

By joining GreenChill, Hy-Vee commits to:

• Require that all of its new and remodeled stores use environmentally friendlier refrigerants.
• Reduce the amount of refrigerant they use and eliminate refrigerant leaks.
• Adopt green refrigeration technologies, strategies, and practices.

The GreenChill Partnership was launched in 2007. It now includes 49 partners with close to 5,500 stores throughout the nation. GreenChill’s supermarket partners’ refrigerant leak rates are about 50 percent lower than the industry average, the EPA estimates. If every supermarket in the nation reduced its refrigerant emissions to the GreenChill average leak rate, the nation would save the equivalent of 22 metric tons of carbon dioxide every year, which is the same as taking more than 4,000,000 passenger vehicles off the road.