BESA calls for cooling career boost
UK: The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) has urged the cooling industry to increase efforts to recruit a new generation of engineers in support of World Refrigeration Day.
This year’s World Refrigeration Day (WRD) on June 26 takes the theme Next Generation Cooling with events all over the world focusing on the need for innovative and sustainable cooling solutions capable of achieving global energy efficiency and net zero goals.
BESA technical director and IoR president Graeme Fox emphasised that the industry would need to appeal to a much broader pool of potential talent to keep thriving into the future.
“We will have to manage a huge balancing act over the next 20 to 30 years. Our world is warming and driving demand for cooling technologies, but at the same time we simply must reduce our energy consumption,” he said.
“Fortunately, our industry has a great track record of innovation so most of the solutions we need are coming through and evolving rapidly to meet these challenges. However, we are short of the numbers of highly skilled engineers we need to design, install and operate systems at the necessary scale.”
He added that BESA would be using this year’s WRD to celebrate the vital role played by refrigeration technology in modern society including healthcare, the food chain, buildings, data centres and transport.
“If someone is looking for a career where they can make a significant and long-lasting contribution to the future of the planet and their local communities, air conditioning and refrigeration ticks all the boxes,” said Fox.
