Taking action to reduce harmful pollution from cooling ice rinks, shopping centres, and grocery stores is important as Canada continues to reduce emissions and build a resilient economy and a cleaner future.
Today, the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, announced a second project type eligible to generate offset credits under Canada's Greenhouse Gas Offset Credit System. The new protocol, Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Refrigeration Systems, encourages businesses to upgrade their refrigeration and air-conditioning systems to ones that use refrigerants with lower global warming potentials by rewarding them with offset credits that they can sell to generate revenue.
Commercial or industrial facilities that may want to participate in the federal offset system using the new protocol include: food processing plants, ice rinks, shopping centres, office buildings, industrial parks, retail grocery stores, and cold storage warehouses.
When one of these businesses upgrades or replaces their refrigeration or air-conditioning system, they may be eligible to earn a credit. Each credit represents one tonne of emissions and is tradeable to facilities regulated under the federal pollution pricing system for industrial emitters (the Output-Based Pricing System) to help these facilities with compliance costs and maintain business competitiveness. Credits can also be sold to others who will use them to meet voluntary emission reduction targets or net-zero commitments.
This new protocol builds on the existing protocol published in June 2022 for Landfill Methane Recovery and Destruction, which supports projects that actively recover and destroy landfill gas.
The Federal Greenhouse Gas Offset Credit System is among several measures that Canada is taking to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and delivers on a commitment in Canada's 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan.
