Natural future for multinational pharmacy beauty group Alliance Boots

At the 2013 the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) Refrigeration Summit, titled “Moving away from HFCs…Naturally!” hydrocarbons21.com spoke to Ian Westran, Technical Engineering Manager at Alliance Boots about current and future plans to phase-in natural refrigerants. Within Boots UK stores, new and replacement pharmacy refrigerators operate on propane.

hydrocarbons21.com: Can you tell us a little about Alliance Boots' experience with, and future plans for use of, natural refrigerants?

Ian Westran: We use refrigerants in a number of areas including food and drink display units, air conditioning equipment and pharmacy refrigerators. We are very conscious of the refrigerant types that we use, and consider their environmental impact alongside their energy efficiency and performance. Boots UK, for example, has operated non-HFC refrigerants in air conditioning systems since 1968. Using the steam from our Combined Heat and Power (CHP) energy centre through steam absorption chillers to deliver cooling for the Boots UK main support office building in Nottingham is an excellent example of this.

Within Boots UK stores, new and replacement pharmacy refrigerators operate on propane, which has a significantly lower global warming potential than HFC refrigerants.

Boots UK uses relatively few food and drink display units in around one third of its stores. To date, we have operated these units mainly as stand-alone integral cabinets using HFC-based refrigerants. This has been very much the industry standard approach, but we are beginning to see recent technological opportunities to improve further, including the potential to use natural refrigerants. Similarly, air conditioning equipment in our stores predominantly operates on HFC-based refrigerants.

hydrocarbons21.com: As a member of the Consumer Goods Forum, Alliance Boots has pledged to begin phasing out HFCs in new installations starting in 2015. What steps are being taken to ensure that you meet that pledge?

Ian Westran: We have been actively planning the replacement of our refrigerated displays for some time, in line with our commitment to continually improve our environmental sustainability. We have made 2 very important changes to our approach, moving a significant part of the estate to operate on external plant and in conjunction with our supply partners we will prove concepts to enable the use of natural refrigerants for both remote and integral installations.

Resolving the challenge of using natural refrigerants in air conditioning systems in our stores is more challenging. We are currently exploring the opportunities with major manufacturers to better integrate systems for refrigerated displays units with building air conditioning to maximise the investment in natural refrigerant plant.

Thank you!