Kroger has agreed to spend $100 million to fix and upgrade its chilling equipment after the Trump administration claimed the grocery giant spent almost a decade leaking a powerful refrigerant that erodes the planet’s ozone layer.
Between 2014 and 2023, the company failed to quickly fix leaks of a refrigerant known as R-22, the Justice Department alleged in a press release announcing the proposed settlement.
R-22 is a hydrochlorofluorocarbon, or HCFC, that was phased out in 2020 under the Montreal Protocol because it depletes the ozone layer, the stratospheric shield that protects life on Earth from ultraviolet radiation.
The chemical is also a potent greenhouse gas, with each pound of R-22 being nearly as potent for global warming as a ton of carbon dioxide.
