Greener Reefers in international maritime transport

Reefer containers are vital for trading food and non-food products globally. At the same time, they are also an important source of emissions and contribute notably to the 140 million tonnes of CO2eq annual emissions released by the container shipping industry. This is due to the use of harmful refrigerants and the high energy consumption of conventional reefer containers. The sector is growing rapidly, increasing the negative climate impacts considerably in a business-as-usual scenario. To mitigate these impacts, refrigerant leakages and energy consumption need to be reduced and sustainable solutions with natural refrigerants and high energy efficiency levels need to be promoted. The project is training reefer technicians to reduce leakage rates and ensure optimized energy efficiency. It is alo piloting climate friendly and energy efficient reefer containers.

Project data

Countries: Costa Rica, South Africa
IKI funding: 2,900,000.00 €
Duration: 04/2023 till 10/2026
Status: open
Implementing organisation: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
Political Partner: Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) - South Africa

Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) - Costa Rica
Implementing Partner: National Institute of Learning - Costa Rica
Online: https://www.giz.de/en/worldwide/136718.html

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State of implementation/results

The Kuehne Climate Center (www.kuehne-stiftung.org/…) announces collaboration with GIZ Greener Reefers project at COP 28 in Dubai, and founded the Greener Reefers Transition Alliance (www.green-cooling-initiative.org/…). The Alliance promotes Greener Reefers, which are highly energy efficient refrigerated maritime containers that use natural refrigerants and blowing agents with ultra-low climate impact (Global Warming Potential GWP below 3) and which do not contain F-gases and PFAS.
With guest speakers from one of Europe’s largest independent research organisations on refrigerants, the Norwegian “Stiftelsen for industriell og teknisk forskning” (SINTEF), and Kuehne Foundation, the project presented the concept of Greener Reefers and their low climate-impact at COP 28 in the Montreal Protocol Pavilion. Greener Reefers are highly energy efficient refrigerated maritime containers that use natural refrigerants and blowing agents with ultra-low climate impact (Global Warming Potential below 1).
Carrier Transicold and the project have agreed to collaborate to advance cold chain development and training in Costa Rica and South Africa. The memorandum of understanding was signed at COP 28 and focuses on providing training to technicians for refrigerated containers using natural refrigerants, such as carbon dioxide.
Thermo King and GIZ launch pioneering "Greener Reefer" using natural refrigerants. The project aims to develop a safe and efficient intermodal shipping container with a lower carbon footprint compared to conventional reefers. This will be achieved by improved thermal insulation of the container and optimized reefer machinery system design. It will also feature R290, a hydrocarbon refrigerant with Global Warming Potential of under 0.1 and an ozone depletion potential of 0.
The first reefer training with natural refrigerants was launched on 14.07.2025 in South Africa at the training center ACRA. Further trainings will be offered by this institution and in cooperation with the training center West Coast College.
At the MOP 37 in Kenya under the Montreal Protocol, the project organized the side event “Driving the Transition for Sustainable Change in Mobile Air Conditioning (MAC)” for demonstrating the potential of natural refrigerants in the transport cooling and Mobile Air Conditioning sector.
During the Intermodal 2025 in October in Barcelona, Spain, one of the main fairs for containers, the project organized the side event “Sustainable Transformation of Cold Chain: the Greener Reefers Project as a model for low-emission innovations” The session demonstrated that the global south is ready for the transition to propane-based reefers.

Latest Update:
05/2026