ATMOsphere Releases New Report, ‘Refrigeration: Commercial and Industrial Refrigeration with Natural Refrigerants 2025’

The report features data on sites in Europe, North America, Asia, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa using natural refrigerants.

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, April 9, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- ATMOsphere has released a new report, “Refrigeration: Commercial and Industrial Refrigeration with Natural Refrigerants 2025,” featuring data on food retail and industrial sites around the world using natural refrigerants.

The 2025 edition of the report contains data on Europe, North America, Asia, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In the commercial sector, data was collected on the number of grocery stores, supermarkets and convenience stores using transcritical CO2 (R744) racks and condensing units and the number of installed self-contained hydrocarbon (mostly propane/R290) cabinets. For industrial refrigeration, data was gathered on the number of industrial sites using low-charge ammonia (R717) and transcritical CO2 systems.

The report can be downloaded for free here.

“In general there is growing adoption of natural refrigerants in commercial and industrial refrigeration around the world,” said Jan Dusek, Co-Founder and COO of ATMOsphere. “This report features data from countries on six continents, the majority of which have well-established and growing markets for transcritical CO2, self-contained hydrocarbon cases and low-charge ammonia systems.”

A major milestone in Europe

The natural refrigerants industry reached a major milestone in 2025 as Europe passed 100,000 sites using transcritical CO2 refrigeration systems (all figures are estimates as of December 2025). There were 111,650 sites using transcritical CO2 systems in Europe in December 2025: 106,000 food retail and 5,650 industrial sites. In 2024 the total number of sites using transcritical CO2 refrigeration systems in Europe was 95,600.

In addition, Europe also has the most self-contained hydrocarbon cases (19.7 million) and low-charge ammonia systems (5,650) of all the regions ATMOsphere gathered data for.

“These figures make it clear that the conversation around natural refrigerants in commercial and industrial refrigeration in Europe has entered a new stage,” said Dusek. “We’re looking at a market entering a maturation phase, one that will be marked by increased technical sophistication and energy efficiency.”

Established markets continue growing

North America, which consists of Canada and the United States in the report, and Japan both saw strong growth from 2024 to 2025. Some highlights from the commercial sector:

● There were 5,120 food retail stores using transcritical CO2 systems in North America, 3,460 in the U.S. and 1,660 in Canada. This is a total year-over-year increase of 25% from 4,100 food retail stores.
● There were 14,350 food retail stores in Japan using transcritical CO2 refrigeration systems: 13,500 convenience stores and 850 supermarkets. The majority of these systems are condensing units.

Some highlights from the industrial sector:

● In North America there were more industrial sites using low-charge ammonia (1,480) than transcritical CO2 (1,240), although the latter is growing quicker.
● There were 580 industrial sites using transcritical CO2 refrigeration systems in Japan, a growth of 23% from 2024.

More emerging markets covered

ATMOsphere’s 2024 report on natural refrigerants in commercial and industrial refrigeration featured data from Australia and New Zealand along with Latin America, a region consisting of 20 countries. Its 2025 report also features those emerging markets along with a handful of new ones: South Africa, China, South Korea and Southeast Asia, which comprises eight countries.

Some highlights from Australia, New Zealand and Latin America:

● Australia and New Zealand both have more than 300 total sites (food retail and industrial) using transcritical CO2 refrigeration systems: Australia has 400, and New Zealand has 320.
● Latin America has 9.4 million self-contained hydrocarbon cases installed in food retail stores. Of this, 2.9 million are installed in Mexico, and 6.5 million are installed in Central and South America.

Some highlights from the newly added regions:

● South Africa has 650 food retail stores using transcritical CO2 systems.
● China has 35 total sites using transcritical CO2 systems.

Synergies with other sectors

The growth of natural refrigerants in refrigeration isn’t just benefitting companies in those sectors. It’s having a spillover effect into other parts of the HVAC&R industry, which Dusek noted.

“Companies have taken what they’ve learned in refrigeration and applied it to a wide variety of sectors, including commercial HVAC, district heating and even mobile air-conditioning,” he said. “Natural refrigerants have gone from the fringe of the HVAC&R industry to big business with hundreds of suppliers fighting for a piece of the ever-growing pie.”

Along with “Refrigeration: Commercial and Industrial Refrigeration with Natural Refrigerants” 2025, ATMOsphere recently released a report on clean cooling in data centers, which can be downloaded for free here. A report on natural refrigerant-based chillers in commercial HVAC in Europe is also planned for 2025.

About ATMOsphere

For the past 20 years, market accelerator ATMOsphere (formerly shecco) has been active in helping bring climate-friendly technologies faster to market. ATMOsphere supports over 100 partners worldwide in the HVAC&R sector, where the focus is on sustainable refrigeration, heating and cooling technologies using natural refrigerants.

Marc Chasserot
ATMOsphere
marc.chasserot@shecco.com
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