"A new report accuses the league of using its N.H.L. Green program to promote refrigerants that will contribute to global warming."

"For over a decade the N.H.L. has promoted its commitment to the environment, using hockey’s birth on frozen ponds to connect the sport to the natural world and to portray its protection as a corporate imperative. But a new report questions that commitment and accuses the league of using its N.H.L. Green program to endorse refrigerants that will contribute to irreversibly warming the planet.

The N.H.L. has a partnership with the chemical company Chemours that involves promoting Opteon, a group of refrigerants produced by Chemours that are used in chillers underneath the ice at rinks. A news release issued last month announced a multiyear renewal of the partnership, which began in 2018, saying the deal would provide “environmentally and economically sustainable refrigerant solutions” to ice rinks across North America.

But Opteon refrigerants have a high global warming potential, especially compared with ammonia, a chemical that does not warm the planet and is already used in the chillers of thousands of ice rinks. Misleading marketing could prompt hockey rinks across the United States and Canada to adopt a refrigerant that worsens climate change, according to the report published Wednesday by the Environmental Investigation Agency U.S., a nongovernmental organization based in Washington, D.C."

Kevin Draper and Hiroko Tabuchi report for the New York Times November 17, 2021. [2]