Thermo King, the transport refrigeration brand of global climate innovator Trane Technologies, announced it will transition to a lower global warming potential (GWP) refrigerant as standard in its truck and trailer units. This will reduce the carbon footprint of refrigerants used by its customers’ long-haul, middle-mile and last-mile delivery fleets by nearly 50% or approximately 650,000 metric tons of CO2e annually, equivalent to the emissions of 143,000 passenger vehicles per year.

While customers previously had the option to drop in the lower global warming potential refrigerant, Thermo King units will now come standard with the industry’s most sustainable refrigerant available in the market today, the company noted in a press release.

The next generation of Thermo King’s Precedent trailer portfolio will transition to the lower-GWP refrigerant (R452A) in January 2022, and truck products will come standard with the new refrigerant mid-2022. New units will no longer use R404A. These actions contribute to Trane Technologies’ Gigaton Challenge to reduce customer emissions by a billion metric tons by 2030.

Using a lower-GWP refrigerant as standard will help customers prepare for future regulation. Beginning in 2023, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) will require TRUs operating in California to use refrigerants with a GWP of 2200 or less. In North America, Thermo King is one full year ahead of this regulation. As part of the global transition to more sustainable refrigerants, Thermo King has been using R452A for its entire EMEA portfolio for several years and select products in North America and in Asia Pacific, the company stated.