With a clear commitment to eliminate ozone-depleting substances and substances that have a high GWP the Swiss-based healthcare company is on the road to natural refrigerants. Three big new projects in Germany, Ireland and the U.S. are especially designed to minimise environmental damages and improve energy-efficiency at the same time by using only natural refrigerants hydrocarbons, ammonia and CO₂.

The objective of a new project of Roche is the environmental improvement of a plant in the southwest of Germany. One main focus will be the enhancement of the plant’s refrigeration systems. To this end, all refrigerants that contain halogens will be replaced by natural refrigerants. For the new logistics centre the healthcare company decided to chose a mixture of the natural refrigerants propane, ammonia and CO₂ to cover a wide temperature range from -70°C to +30°C.

A project sum of 3,5 million euro is planned for the installation of refrigeration systems using propane. A decentralised ammonia refrigeration system will be combined with the propane system as well as a R744 system. The systems will be installed in different buildings, depending on temperature range and needs. All in all the systems for Low, Middle and High Temperature as well as small air-conditioning systems are part of the project of a CFC- and HCFC-free Roche plant that wants to keep the workers as cool as before but in an environmental-friendly way. The project started end of 2008, with the refrigeration systems planned to be installed end of 2009, while last changes will be finalised by 2010.

Green thinking from Roche

As a consequence of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, the company committed to support the legislation and phase out ozone-depleting substances by 2015. In order to design the most energy-efficient and environmental-sound solutions, new refrigeration systems for plants in Europe and the U.S. that are already reconstructed or in the implementation phase, use only natural refrigerants, such as hydrocarbons.

About Roche

The Roche group is the world's sixth-largest healthcare company whose principal businesses are pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. The headquarters of the research-focused company are in Basel, Switzerland and it is active in over 150 countries and employs around 62,000 people worldwide.