Zack Laws, President and CEO of CO₂ Refrigeration Systems (CRS), detailed the growth of CO₂ industrial refrigeration in the United States and his company’s work in the sector during a conversation with NaturalRefrigerant.com at the International Institute for All-Natural Refrigeration (IIAR) 2026 conference.

Based in Iowa and founded in 2022, CRS manufactures skid-mounted transcritical CO₂ refrigeration units and gas coolers. The conference was held March 15‒18 in San Antonio, Texas.

“We’ve seen more industrial contractors interested in quoting CO₂ than ever before in the States,” Laws said. “Going back 24 months most industrial contractors that did ammonia [R717] were not interested in exploring CO₂. A year ago they were, and now most do CO₂ alongside ammonia, or at least they quote it.”

Laws’s insights correspond with data gathered and published by ATMOsphere in its 2025 market report, “Refrigeration: Commercial and Industrial Refrigeration with Natural Refrigerants.” The number of industrial sites using transcritical CO₂ refrigeration systems in the U.S. has grown from 208 in 2023 to 540 in 2025. ATMOsphere is the publisher of NaturalRefrigerants.com.

As a case in point, the projects detailed by Laws represented CO₂ refrigeration firsts for both companies ‒ one marking the first installation across an ice cream maker’s operations, including hundreds of distribution centers and warehouses, and the other the first CO₂ system within a division of a cold storage company.

Modesto, California: An ice cream supplier for restaurants and other foodservice channels replaced its production plant’s aging synthetic refrigeration system with a 102TR (359kW) CO₂ system.

• With a single CRS Switch package containing a CO₂ condensing unit and an adiabatic gas cooler, the CO₂ system supplies 86TR (302kW) of capacity at 34°F (1°C) for the company’s dock loading area and 16TR (56kW) at −10°F (−23°C) for the ice cream freezer.
• CRS will integrate another Switch package later in 2025 that will provide an additional 190TR (668kW) of cooling capacity for the facility’s 0°F (−18°C) freezer.
• “We ran energy calculations for the freon solution they were considering,” Laws said. “In California’s low-GWP climate, the combination of energy efficiency and longevity made CO₂ the clear choice.”

Fort Worth, Texas: At a 130,000ft² (12,080m²) cold storage facility, CRS installed a parallel compression 372TR (1.3MW) CO₂ skid that supplies convertible temperatures.

• The 30,000ft² (2,790m²) loading dock, with a cooling capacity of 120TR (422kW), operates at 34°F.
• The 100,000ft² (9,290m²) storage area, with a cooling capacity of 252TR (886kW), allows convertible temperatures from −10 to 45°F (−23 to 7°C) in each of its six different compartments.
• “As part of our sales process, we offer energy analysis, comparing ammonia [R717], CO₂ and freon,” Laws said, adding that in this case, CO₂ played out favorably for both capital and operating costs. 

International experience: “Across the U.S. market, we see contractors dealing with oil management issues in CO₂ systems, which lead to improper oil return,” Laws said, adding that this is a problem that CRS’s sister companies in Australia and South Africa have not encountered for roughly a decade.

• “We have come to understand the core reason is improper line sizing,” Laws said. “Compared to ammonia and freon, CO₂ piping is tiny, which makes folks uncomfortable. However, oversized pipes can’t maintain the needed velocities to carry oil through a CO₂ system.”
• The company’s five-year warranty on its CO₂ packages is predicated on CRS reviewing and approving the line sizing, Laws said.

Quotable: “As a manufacturer, we offer an energy guarantee,” Laws said, adding that through its sister companies, CRS can validate performance of wet- and dry-bulb conditions representative of climates across the U.S. “If [the client] has any hesitation behind the numbers we put together, we will stand behind it for two years.”

“We’ve seen more industrial contractors interested in quoting CO₂ than ever before in the States.”

Zack Laws, President and CEO of CRS