Mark Vender
An initiative to apply the Project Drawdown approach to the HVAC&R industry has been highlighted on the Climactic podcast.
Project Drawdown is a worldwide project that lays out a plan to reverse global warming. It has drawn on more than 65 researchers and scientists from 22 countries to identify, research, and model the 100 most substantive, existing solutions to address climate change.
The 100 solutions have also been ranked, according to their potential impact. Interestingly, although well-known solutions such as wind and solar power appeared prominently, refrigerant management was found to be the top solution. This unexpected result has drawn wider attention to the HVAC&R industry.
In the hope of harnessing this interest, AIRAH has submitted a plan proposing how Project Drawdown’s methods could be applied to the HVAC&R industry. Although a geographic approach has been used in the past – in Tasmania and Bendigo, for example – this is the first time it has been considered for an industry.
“Project Drawdown confirms that our industry has a massive role to play in reducing, and potentially reversing global warming,” says AIRAH’s Executive Manager – Technical Services and Government Relations, Phil Wilkinson. “It has inspired me to work with others to create a cross-sectoral HVAC&R Project Drawdown approach.
“Given that HVAC&R includes the number one way of addressing global warming, and is set to expand greatly until the Project Drawdown end date of 2050, what better sector to start with?”
The goal is to surface stories about initiatives around the world, produce a more granular model to measure specific solutions, and gain a better sense of how HVAC&R interacts with other sectors.
The podcast episode includes interviews with Project Drawdown’s Paul Hawken and AIRAH’s Phil Wilkinson.
Leave a Reply