Kylie Farrelley appointed to Refrigerant Reclaim Australia

AUSTRALIA: Refrigerant Reclaim Australia (RRA), the product stewardship organisation for the Australian refrigerants industry has named Forane business manager Kylie Farrelley as its new general manager.

Farrelley is taking over from Michael Bennett, who will be stepping down in June after serving the organisation since 1997.

Refrigerant Reclaim Australia Ltd was formed in 1993 and is the industry-funded not-for-profit organisation established to recover, reclaim and destroy ozone depleting and synthetic greenhouse gas refrigerants.

With near 20 years at previous employer Arkema, Kylie Farrelley brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to her new role. She has been affiliated with Refrigerant Reclaim Australia since 2008 as an industry representative, was appointed to the board of directors in 2016 and became chair last year. 

Her primary objectives will be to expand RRA’s outreach work, educate the industry and public on the work RRA is doing, and generate a higher return rate of refrigerants in Australia.

Promising to work with the industry to continue to build on RRA’s success in reducing harmful emissions and protecting the environment, Farrelley acknowledged the contribution of Michael Bennett. “I would like to acknowledge the exceptional vision of Michael Bennett, whose passion and dedication has built the RRA scheme to what it is today,” she said.

Since inception, RRA has taken back more than 7,000 tonnes of used contaminated and unwanted refrigerant. This equates to more than 10 million tonnes of stratospheric ozone being saved from destruction, and more than 14 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent being prevented from emission.

Michael Bennett is stepping aside to focus on more specific programmes and initiatives. He has been involved with RRA since its early days and began managing the programme on a consultancy basis in early 1997. He was appointed full-time as general manager in mid-2000.

Amongst his many contributions to the industry, he was a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Technical and Economic Advisory Panel (TEAP) Special Report – Safeguarding the Ozone Layer and the Global Climate System. The IPCC and TEAP authors were collectively awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

RRA has also received prestigious awards including the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Montreal Protocol Implementers Award, and two awards from the United States of America Environment Protection Agency one being for stratospheric ozone protection and the other for climate protection.