Topics in Corporate Responsibility
The Refrigerant Revolution
TriplePundit’s comprehensive coverage of refrigerants’ link to climate change has continued with recent posts by Andrew Burger on A/C refrigerant standards and the race to find low-GWP refrigerants.
Last fall, the first phase of our series on the Refrigerant Revolution® explored the challenge in depth, looking at the history, policy backdrop, key issues including R-22 phase-out, and implications for future sustainability. We continue with a series of posts focusing on multi-sector solutions to this global environmental challenge.
Common coolers face an uncertain end.
A tale of two fridges
After years of quiet, dedicated service in our homes, more than 9.4 million fridges and freezers reach the end of their useful life in the U.S. each year.
Every wonder what happens to these unsung heroes of modern life?
First, we should point out that refrigerators and freezers are unique from other appliances and household items because they contain refrigerants and blowing agents, which are powerful greenhouse gases. They also contain polyurethane foam, another GHG contributor. Depending on the type of refrigerant and blowing agent, a single refrigerator can contain the climate equivalent of driving an SUV for an entire year and up to 8 cubic feet of foam.
In the U.S., most refrigerators take one of two paths once leaving our kitchen or garage. The “common cooler” ends up heading directly to a metal scrapyard where its refrigerant and insulation foam are rarely dealt with properly. Conversely, the “lucky fridges,” like those Triple Pundit profiled last September, are properly de-manufactured in accordance with EPA’s Responsible Appliance Disposal (RAD) program.
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The Kroger Co. came up with an inventive solution to prevent food that is not fit to be sold or donated from ending up in a landfill. The retailer installed an anaerobic conversion system at its distribution center (DC) in Compton, California. The Southern California 59-acre DC serves Kroger subsidiaries, Food 4 Less and Ralph’s. Called the Kroger Recovery System, it converts food into energy to help power the 65,000 square foot DC. The system is able to process 55,000 tons of organic food waste a year and turn it into energy. Diverting that amount of food waste is equivalent to 150 tons a day, and will reduce truck trips in the area by over 500,000 miles a year.
Those of you who missed last Friday’s twitter chat with Unilever’s CSO Gail Klintworth, can fear not. We’ve got a transcript of the chat’s highlights right here for you to reference.
If you follow the news there’s a good chance you’ve heard about 
Can you stand to invest in ways that make the world worse? Mitch Kapor of 
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in the Bowman v. Monsanto case, which dealt with issues surrounding patent exhaustion—limiting how long patent holders can control the use and sale of an item—and the patenting of living organisms.
Earlier this week, 
TriplePundit: Briefly describe your role and responsibilities, and how many years you have been in the business.
The Rise of the Sharing Economy
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