These carts were designed to keep street vendors’ produce cool—reducing food waste and boosting profits

Trane Technologies is one of the winners of Fast Company’s 2023 World Changing Ideas Awards. Explore the full list of projects we’re honoring for making the world more equitable, accessible, and sustainable.



New street vendor cooling carts from Trane Technologies address multiple problems simultaneously.



By keeping produce cool, they can help reduce the nearly 1 billion metric tons of food that gets discarded every year, much of it winding up in landfills, where the United Nations estimates it contributes 10% of global climate-warming gases as it decomposes.



Keeping healthful food fresh longer is critical at a time when, according to the World Food Programme, more than 800 million people are unsure where their next meal is coming from.



[Photo: Trane Technologies]



In extending food freshness, the carts can provide a huge economic benefit to the more than 25 million street vendors Trane estimates are operating in developing economies, lowering the cumulative $75 billion annual loss they incur when the food they are aiming to sell goes bad. For addressing all of these issues, Trane’s passive cooling carts are the winner of Fast Company’s 2023 World Changing Ideas Award in the Developing World Technology category.



The carts rely on a canopy that’s made from a film developed by SkyCool Systems. The film reflects sunlight to prevent fresh produce from overheating, passively cooling the area beneath by up to 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) and saving food from spoiling and being tossed out before it can be sold.



[Illustration: Jose Berrio ]



“It doesn’t require any change in behavior, which was a really important part of the solution,” says Dominique Silva, Trane’s head of innovation initiatives.



The company has been testing a pilot program in Kolar, India, which led to a recent order of 300 carts, says Trane senior director Zubin Varghese. “It has a great impact not only on food waste,” he says, “but also the [income] of people who are selling the food, especially in places like India, where most of the last mile is done on the carts.”



Trane is now working with the UN to expand adoption of the cooling carts to other locations beyond India.