Supermarkets and other end users, particularly those operating in the New York area, will have an opportunity to tap potential funding resources to support installations of transcritical CO₂ (R744) refrigeration and other natural refrigerant-based equipment at the ATMOsphere (ATMO) America Summit 2026 next week.

ATMO America will take place June 2–3 at the Westchester Marriott in Tarrytown, New York. ATMOsphere, publisher of NaturalRefrigerants.com, is the organizer of the conference.

On June 2, three speakers will address funding opportunities during the Policy & Standards session:= 

• Suzanne Hagell, GHG Mitigation Team Lead in the Office of Climate Change at New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC). NYSDEC and the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council (NASRC) partner to offer grant programs aimed at helping supermarkets in disadvantaged communities or under-resourced areas transition to natural refrigerants.
• Andrew Haser, Associate Director, (NYCEEC) New York City Energy Efficiency Corporation, will provide input and guidance on project financing for energy efficiency projects in New York area buildings and businesses.
• Tom Kacandes and Rees Sweeney-Taylor, Senior Consultants for VEIC, help supermarkets and other end users obtain energy-efficiency rebates for CO₂ refrigeration systems that demonstrate energy savings from utilities like Con Edison.

Hagell, Haser and Sweeney-Taylor will also be available after their presentations to answer queries from end users at a table in the conference exhibit area. They will be joined there by:

• Richard Reynoso, Chief Lending Officer, Accompany Capital, a New York City-based nonprofit and community development financial institution (CDFI).
• Adam Shorey, Director of Sales Engineering at Therm, which helps grocery retailers, food distributors and dairy farmers to obtain carbon credits and utility rebates for natural refrigerant installations.

Though not represented at the conference, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced on May 18 a new rule that will allow eligible borrowers to combine their 7(a) and 504 loans for up to $10 million (€8.6 million) in SBA-backed financing, increasing the cumulative loan limit from its current $5 million (€4.3 million) and expanding the capital available to small businesses across all industries.

Complying with Part 494

Supermarket operators in New York State are particularly eager to seek funding support for natural refrigerant projects to comply with the state’s ambitious HFC regulations (6 NYCRR Part 494), which were updated in December 2024.

Under the amended rules, supermarket systems and remote condensing units with refrigerant charge capacity of 50lbs (23kg) or greater have been restricted to refrigerants with a GWP20 (20-year GWP) of 580 or less as of January 1, 2026; beginning January 1, 2034, only refrigerants with a GWP20 of 10 or less will be allowed, effectively meaning natural refrigerants.

The National Supermarket Association (NSA), a New York-based trade association for about 1,200 independent supermarkets in the New York Metropolitan Area and other East Coast cities, is seeking support for its members to make the transition from HFC refrigeration to systems using natural refrigerants such as CO₂ and propane (R290). At the ATMO America conference, three NSA members, including President Anthony Peña, will participate in a panel discussion of their financing goals on June 2.

The NSA has outlined its concerns and needs regarding Part 494 rules in a position paper aimed at New York policymakers called “Closing the Compliance Gap: Why New York’s Independent Supermarkets Need More Than Mandates to Transition to Natural Refrigerants.” The paper was prepared by the NSA In partnership with ATMOsphere and Ozone Refrigeration, a distributor of Hussmann CO₂ refrigeration equipment in the New York Metropolitan Area.