World’s first halon gas destruction and carbon offset project sets stage for significant carbon reductions
CHICAGO, Feb. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Tradewater, a leading carbon credit project developer specializing in eliminating potent greenhouse gasses, today announced the successful completion of the world’s first project to safely destroy halon fire suppression gas.
This pilot project, in collaboration with Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM) and Wesco HMB, demonstrates an economically viable, environmentally responsible end-of-life solution for halon gas, one of the world’s most dangerous greenhouse gasses. The destruction of the world’s remaining halon gas could eliminate over 300 million tons of carbon pollution worldwide, or the equivalent of eliminating the annual greenhouse gas emissions of more than 65 million cars.
New production of halon gas was stopped under the Montreal protocol nearly three decades ago. Halon gases are not only ozone depleting substances but are also extremely potent greenhouse gasses, with a global warming potential (GWP) 7,000 times greater than CO2. Environmentally benign, “clean agents” have increasingly displaced halon in new and retrofit applications.
Iron Mountain worked with Wesco to collect approximately 2,687 pounds of Halon 1301 from decommissioned equipment in Iron Mountain facilities and from Wesco’s reclamation business. Typically, these halons would be recycled and put back into old equipment. Under the pilot project, however, Tradewater, instead safely destroyed the gas and produced verified carbon offset credits in the first-ever use of the American Carbon Registry Methodology for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions and Removals from the Destruction of Ozone Depleting Substances, Version 1.1. Microsoft’s Learn TV purchased the resulting carbon offsets to meet their voluntary carbon credit commitments.
“As legacy systems come out of service and clean agents take over the market for new applications, businesses face the dilemma of how to manage obsolete gas,” said John Demeter, President of Wesco. “This pilot project has demonstrated an economically viable, responsible end-of-life solution to ensure that retired halon will never be released into the atmosphere and will help our industry continue our commitment to product stewardship.”
“We’ve made great progress in reducing our carbon footprint and earlier this year we joined The Climate Pledge, committing to be Net Zero by 2040,” said Kevin Hagen, VP Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) Strategy at Iron Mountain. “We know that the potential climate impact of the halon used in some of the fire suppression systems protecting our customers’ critical assets, poses our largest greenhouse gas risk. With this pilot we’ve helped demonstrate a path to transition to clean alternatives with confidence that the decommissioned halon has a safe end-of-life solution.”
The success of the pilot was contingent on corporate interest in the project type. There are many different carbon offset credits that companies can use to meet their sustainability commitments and Tradewater was eager to demonstrate that the destruction of halons was something the market would value. That is where Microsoft’s Learn TV entered, finding it valuable to support the destruction of greenhouse gases prevalent in data centers by purchasing many of the offset credits generated by the pilot.
“Enabling the team and our partners to confidently contribute towards climate action has been empowering and impactful,” said Jenny Morgan of Microsoft’s Learn TV. “Halon-containing equipment and other toxic materials must be properly identified, collected, handled, and disposed of, which requires an organized and passionate group of industry leaders to get involved now. We look forward to continue contributing towards our collective efforts with Tradewater and hope to see other industry leaders join in to grow awareness and increased opportunity for action.”
“This is a great example of the power of the carbon market to inspire innovative solutions and make a huge impact,” said Gabe Plotkin, COO of Tradewater. “Halons pose a real climate risk. Demonstrating that they can be destroyed and that there is a market for the carbon credits will help accelerate industry transitions to newer fire suppressants that are less harmful to the planet.”
“The American Carbon Registry is proud to have developed the protocol used in this pilot program,” said Mary Grady, CEO of the American Carbon Registry. ”Our peer-reviewed methodologies ensure that projects like this have a real, measurable, and verifiable impact in the fight against climate change, and we hope that the work of Tradewater, Iron Mountain, and Wesco HMB leads to additional projects that destroy harmful, ozone-depleting halons.”
About Iron Mountain
Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) is the global leader in innovative storage, lifecycle IT asset management and information management services. Founded in 1951 and trusted by more than 225,000 customers worldwide, Iron Mountain helps customers CLIMB HIGHER™ to transform their businesses. Through a range of services including digital transformation, data centers, secure records storage, information management, IT Asset Lifecycle Management, secure destruction, and art storage and logistics, Iron Mountain helps businesses bring light to their dark data, enabling customers to unlock value and intelligence from their stored digital and physical assets at speed and with security, while helping them meet their environmental goals. To learn more about Iron Mountain, visit http://www.IronMountain.com and follow @IronMountain on Twitter and LinkedIn.
About Tradewater
Tradewater’s mission is to improve our environment and create economic opportunity through the collection, control, and destruction of potent, high impact greenhouse gases. Tradewater believes that a company committed to cleaning up the environment can be just as successful – if not more so – than a company that achieves its goals without regard to environmental impact. Tradewater has prevented 5.3 million tons of CO2e from being released to the atmosphere through the destruction of ozone depleting substances such as refrigerants and halons.
About Wesco
Wesco HMB, Inc. is the largest recycler of Halons and other clean fire protection gasses in the world with facilities in Metuchen, New Jersey (headquarters), Toronto, Canada, Wroclaw, Poland and Dubai, UAE. All Wesco fire suppression gasses are recycled, and third party tested to NFPA, ISO and ASTM standards. Much more than a “Halon recycler,” Wesco’s knowledge and experience with a wide range of clean fire protection systems has made them the number one “go to” company when it comes to emergency agent discharges and repair work.”
Media Contact
Elyssa Dahl, Tradewater, 1 425-387-8854, [email protected]
SOURCE Tradewater
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