WASHINGTON — Since launching last November, the GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration Partnership has nearly tripled its membership and prevented emissions of 2.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, the group said yesterday. GreenChill is an Environmental Protection Agency alliance with the supermarket industry and its suppliers to promote advanced technologies and practices that reduce emissions of ozone-depleting substances and greenhouse gases. To chart their progress in the future, GreenChill's supermarket partners created baseline measurements of corporate-wide refrigerant emissions in 2007 and developed refrigeration management plans to reduce those emissions in 2008. Compared with the rest of the supermarket industry, GreenChill partners are already emitting fewer ozone-depleting refrigerants and greenhouse gases than their competitors, and saving money at the same time, GreenChill said, noting that the retailers' savings in operating costs "equal almost $13 million."

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