How do we decarbonize the chain that keeps the world's food fresh?
Fresh food can travel for days or weeks, moving through farms, warehouses, ships, trucks, supermarkets and finally our homes. Much of it has to stay at the right temperature the whole way to stay safe to eat. That network of refrigerated storage and transport is the cold chain. It runs almost entirely on diesel, and demand for it keeps growing.
Dr Liz Goodwin, Director of Food Loss and Waste at the World Resources Institute, sets the scale of the problem. Up to 40% of the food the world produces is lost or wasted. She explains why adding more refrigeration can't fix that on its own: a cold chain only works where there are formal markets, real demand and the skills to run it. Her point frames the rest of the episode. Better refrigeration matters, but only as part of a wider system.
Then Claudio Zanframundo, President of Thermo King EMEA & APAC, takes us inside the technology that keeps the cold chain moving. He explains why maintaining temperature across a long, multi-stage journey is so difficult, and how digital tracking and AI now help operators protect the load and run more efficiently. He describes how energy recovery captures power a moving trailer would otherwise lose and uses it to run the refrigeration. He looks at what EU decarbonization targets ask of the industry, and whether today's technology can meet them. And he closes on what it takes beyond the equipment to keep a cold chain running: service, infrastructure and skilled people.
Together, Liz and Claudio make the case that the biggest gains are in what the system already holds: the food it loses and the energy it wastes. Recovering those, with the right regulation and the people to run the network, is how the cold chain grows and gets cleaner at the same time.
>>> Watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/3dsfSnD2Q-g
EPISODE CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction - The hidden chapter from farm to table
01:07 How large is the food waste problem?
03:17 Why more cold chain isn’t always the answer
05:01 Why households are a major source of food waste
08:13 What COVID taught us about reducing
10:13 Building a sustainable food system takes everyone
12:58 Why refrigeration alone isn’t enough
14:00 The complexity of the food chain
18:50 How digital tracking reduces waste
20:53 Where AI fits into the cold chain
23:43 Recovering otherwise wasted energy
30:54 Transforming the cold chain as a system
LEARN MORE
Sustainability Reports | Trane Technologies [https://www.tranetechnologies.com/en/index/sustainability/sustainability-reports.html]
The Global Benefits of Reducing Food Waste — and How to Do It | World Resources Institute [https://www.wri.org/insights/reducing-food-loss-and-food-waste]
Mitigating Food Loss | Trane Technologies [https://www.tranetechnologies.com/en/index/blog/sustainability-leadership/mitigating-food-loss-with-a-smarter-cold-chain.html]
World Resources Institute [https://www.wri.org/]
Scott Tew [https://www.tranetechnologies.com/en/index/blog/author/scott-tew.html]
Dominique Silva [https://www.tranetechnologies.com/en/index/blog/author/dominique-silva.html]
Dr. Liz Goodwin OBE [https://www.wri.org/profile/liz-goodwin]
Claudio Zanframundo [https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudio-zanframundo-13101975-/]
ABOUT HEALTHY SPACES
Healthy Spaces, a podcast by Trane Technologies, brings together engineers, innovators, and industry leaders for bold conversations at the frontier of sustainable technology.
In Season 6, we zero in on the moment when innovation becomes infrastructure - when breakthroughs move beyond the lab and start transforming industries.
From pioneering AI research and next-generation data center cooling, to climate-resilient cities and pathways to decarbonization, each episode explores the innovations at the cutting-edge of sustainable technology.
Designed for leaders, builders, and anyone with a stake in the future of sustainable technology, the series offers a front-row seat to the ideas and innovations shaping what comes next.
The challenges are real. The solutions are being built now.
