Honeywell recently announced its inaugural Solstice Awards program, designed to honor companies around the world that are visibly demonstrating their commitment to sustainable air conditioning and refrigeration by adopting refrigerants based on their Solstice technology.

“With World Refrigeration Day and the summer solstice occurring in the same week, it seemed fitting to honor the recipients of our first Solstice Awards,” said Ken West, vice president and general manager at Honeywell Fluorine Products. “We are proud to play an integral role in helping so many companies around the world achieve their sustainability goals.”

Recipients of the Inaugural Solstice Award include:

Albertsons/Safeway: This supermarket chain adopted Solstice N40 (R-448A) lower-GWP refrigerant in more than 640 stores in the U.S. “At Albertsons/Safeway, we are committed to responsible refrigeration practices that lead to a healthier planet,” said Wade Krieger, refrigeration and HVAC manager at Albertsons/Safeway. “The lower GWP of Solstice N40 supports our environmental commitments while also improving overall energy performance and meeting our budget requirements.”

Danfoss: Danfoss adopted Solstice N15 (R-515B), or Solstice® ze, in its new Turbocor® TGS Series of centrifugal compressors, which have the flexibility to be used in air-, water, or evaporative-cooled chillers operating in wide range of applications such as comfort cooling, low-temperature process, ice storage, and heat recovery. Thanks to this flexibility, more than 70,000 Turbocor compressors are installed in jobsites around the world.

“At Danfoss, we play an active role in sustainable global development, where social responsibility, environmental, and climate considerations go together with sound business development, “ said Drew Turner, global marketing manager at Danfoss. “Honeywell’s Solstice refrigerants allow us to offer our customers compressors that not only meet our sustainability requirements, but theirs as well.”

Whole Foods: This natural and organic food retailer adopted Solstice N40 in more than 100 of its U.S. stores as it seeks to reduce refrigerant emissions under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s GreenChill program.

“In the past decade, we’ve implemented several innovative measures to reduce our CO2 emissions, and the use of Honeywell’s refrigerant to retrofit our stores will contribute significantly to this goal,” said Mike Ellinger, principal program manager of engineering, compliance, and sustainability at Whole Foods Market. “After reviewing all of our available retrofit options for our refrigerated cases, Solstice N40 was the clear winner, based on its performance, energy efficiency, reduced GWP, and ease of conversion.”

Honeywell continues to see growing interest from customers around the world in the industrial and commercial A/C and refrigeration industries, including equipment manufacturers and end users like supermarkets and convenience stores. Worldwide adoption of Solstice products has resulted in the reduction of more than 210 million metric tons of CO2 to date, equal to eliminating the emissions from more than 44 million cars from the road for a year.

Click here for a complete list of winners.

Want more HVAC industry news and information? Join The NEWS on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn today!