Chile-based multinational food retailer Cencosud has made natural refrigerants one of the key pillars of its decarbonization strategy, according to Raúl Troncoso Urquiza, the company’s Regional Sustainability Manager.
Refrigerants accounted for 73% of the company’s total emissions in 2024, according to its sustainability report from the same year. This makes the shift to natural refrigerants, specifically transcritical CO2 (R744), central to reducing Cencosud’s emissions.
“The exchange of these refrigerant gases is key,” highlighted Troncoso Urquiza during a keynote speech at ATMOsphere (ATMO) LATAM 2026 held in Bogotá, Colombia, March 9–10.
Cencosud was founded in 1963 in Temuco, Chile, and has 1,486 stores and 80 distribution centers across six countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and the U.S.
Cencosud was an early adopter of sustainable refrigerants in Latin America, opening its first transcritical CO2 store in Valdivia, Chile, in 2017. During his presentation, Troncoso Urquiza explained that since then the company has opened 21 more transcritical CO2 stores in Latin America, with 17 in Chile, two in Colombia and one each in Peru, Argentina and Brazil. The company added seven transcritical CO2 stores in 2025.
Proving their worth
Despite the clear environmental benefits, the transition to natural refrigerants was initially met with internal questions about cost and feasibility, according to Troncoso Urquiza.
The Ministry of the Environment in Chile “opened funding for the design and co-financing of ecological refrigerant solutions,” he said, with backing provided by the Ministry’s Ozone and Climate unit. In addition to costs, Troncoso Urquiza said there were “misconceptions” in the company about natural refrigerants that were removed “little by little” after successful pilot projects.
In the two stores in Colombia, emissions were reduced by 16% with the switch from synthetic gases to CO2. Similarly, the two Jumbo Supermarkets in Temuco that have transitioned to transcritical CO2 refrigeration systems have achieved a 17% reduction in absolute energy consumption in 2024 compared to 2022. The financial benefits have now become apparent at scale, too.
“We just finished a five-year study determining that a transcritical conversion would be 8% more economical than other options,” he explained.
“We just finished a five-year study determining that a transcritical conversion would be 8% more economical than other options.”
Raúl Troncoso Urquiza,
Regional Sustainability Manager at Cencosud
