Toulouse: should air-conditioned shops leave the door open?
When the mercury rises, businesses are happy to offer their customers time in the cool, with full air conditioning. Yet many choose to leave their doors open at the same time. An accepted contradiction.
In Toulouse, rue Saint-Rome, you could almost forget the heat wave. As usual, the smell of waffles permeates the commercial artery and people jostle chaotically with their purchases. 38°C? We almost want not to believe it: and for good reason! Almost all the shops on the street keep their doors open, air conditioning on full blast. Which gives a certain feeling of freshness, outside. Of the fifty-seven shops open this afternoon, only enter the closed door, many of which benefit from sliding doors.
Ecology sacrificed to trade
Questioned, one of the traders shows us the temperature on the screen of his air conditioner: 21°C. The door of his shop is however wide open, despite the difference of almost 17 degrees with the outside temperature: “These are the instructions of the hierarchy. We have to keep the door open to make customers want to come in, especially on Saturday and Wednesday afternoons. »
Another shopkeeper, manager of a children’s clothing store, justifies herself: “It’s true, it shouldn’t exist. But our customers often have a stroller, we have to keep the door open to facilitate their access to the store! »
On the customer side, the contradiction seems obvious, but understandable: “We know that it is not good for global warming, admits Marie-Stéphane, 18 years old. But an open door still makes me want to go into the shops more. Raphaël, the same age, adds: “Anyway, air conditioning is not good for the climate. There, on the other hand, they abuse it. »
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“An easy solution”
An abuse that is expensive, from the point of view of electricity, but also of urban heat. According to the IEA (International Energy Agency), air conditioning systems now represent 10% of global electricity consumption. A figure that continues to rise if, as shown by the ecological transition agency ADEME, the sale of air conditioners has exploded in recent years in France, going from 350,000 units per year in 2014 to more than 800,000 in 2020. It However, this is an “easy solution”, as Michel Dubromel, chemist and president of France Nature Environnement between 2017 and 2020 points out: “Because of the still affordable price of electricity, it is even easier to buy an air conditioner than to set up alternative solutions, which nevertheless exist. An easy solution which, in addition, aggravates the external heat. Because of the consumption of electricity, refrigerants, which strongly contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases (5% of global CO2 production), but also the heat that air conditioners return to the outside buildings.
Since 2007, French law has imposed sobriety: in times of heat wave, it would not be necessary to go below 26 degrees inside buildings. A law which does not currently provide for any sanction or type of control, relying on the common sense of citizens.
Even for businesses, alternative solutions exist. One of the shops on rue Saint-Rome has already posted it on its closed door: “Come in, we’re open :)” All in all, it’s not very complicated.
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