Become a Citizen Investigator

Determine which super greenhouse gases are lurking in your neighborhood supermarket.

Supermarkets don’t publicly share what refrigerants are in their stores, but it’s pretty easy to find out. We’re crowdsourcing for refrigerant labels you can find on your next grocery trip! Help us hunt down super pollutants by submitting your neighborhood grocer or supermarket to our climate-friendly supermarkets map.

How can you investigate your local supermarket? All you need is a camera phone.

1. Find the label inside the refrigerators.

On most refrigerator cases in a store there is a label that lists the refrigerant number. This is most easily found on closed door styles and can be tricky to find on floor display cases, so start in your freezer section or where you pick up your eggs. The label is often on the top of a refrigerator unit and typically near the UL label - find a UL label and you are probably close to the refrigerant label. 

The refrigerant can be clearly marked, or you’ll just see R followed by a few numbers (most commonly, R22, R404A, or R134a - these are all different types of HFCs!), and sometimes you’ll see more than one refrigerant listed. That’s normal too! Look for something like this:

2. Turn on geotagging on your device

This helps us confirm the location of the store for our map.

3. Take a photo of the label

Make sure the refrigerant is in frame!

4. Email climatefriendlysupermarkets@eia-global.org and include:

• The Geotagged Image and ensure geographic information is shared:

1. On an iOS device, using the built in photo app, you must choose to send the image "Actual Size"

2. On an android device, you must attach your image from your phone storage and not from the google cloud

• Your Supermarket’s Name

• The Supermarket’s Address - Optional

Don’t worry, sending in an image won't subscribe you to any list. We promise! But if you do want to sign-up for updates, click here.

5. Check back soon to see if your store was added to the map

The map is updated regularly, to see when your submission has been added please follow @EIAEnvironment or #climatefriendlysupermarkets on Twitter.