'Coolest Day of Year' Gets UNEP Support
From ASHRAE HVAC&R Industry News, February 21, 2019
By W S Comstock, Contributing Editor, Europe & Middle East
PARIS—UN Environment announced it is partnering on World Refrigeration Day. The celebration of refrigeration and air conditioning will take place June 26 every year, beginning in 2019.
Called the “Coolest Day of the Year,” World Refrigeration Day will serve as a means of raising awareness and understanding of the significant role that the industry and its technology play in modern life and society, say the day’s organizers.
Playing off the announcement of the partnership with UNEP at the Second Global Inter-Regional and Parallel Networks Meetings for National Ozone Officers in Paris, February 17 to 20, Steve Gill used the Mona Lisa as an example of how refrigeration impacts daily life. The 500-year-old painting needs to look its best for the more than 6 million visitors annually to the Louvre Museum in Paris, Gill said. The secret is the climate-controlled conditions in which the painting is kept. Gill, a UK-based refrigeration engineer and ASHRAE member, is spearheading the inaugural event.
Steve Gill (at the podium, left), speaks on how refrigeration impacts daily life.
Gill reminded the UNEP audience that refrigeration supports all 17 UNEP activity goals, specifically those related to poverty, inequality, climate, environmental degradation, prosperity, and peace and justice. “They are a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.”
ASHRAE has signed on to endorse World Refrigeration Day. ASHRAE will join UNEP in developing templates for refrigerating and air conditioning engineering societies around the world to use in bringing awareness of the benefits of refrigeration and air conditioning and the important efforts underway to transition to lower Global Warming Potential refrigerants.
More details at www.worldrefrigerationday.org.