Policy brief highlights vital role of cooling
2nd September 2025
BELGIUM: European HVACR industry association, Eurovent, is calling for urgent EU action to support the transition to sustainable cooling in a a future marked by rising temperatures.
A new policy brief from the Brussels-based association highlights the vital role that cooling plays in key sectors such as food cold chain, pharmaceuticals, data centres, electric vehicles, and human comfort.
The HPA explains that with global cooling demand expected to triple by 2050 and Europe warming at twice the global average rate, the policy brief positions sustainable cooling as a core pillar of the green transition.
The brief emphasises energy efficiency, refrigerant management, and access to low-carbon electricity as the three pillars of sustainable cooling. It also underlines how modern, efficient cooling can ease pressure on electricity grids, improve affordability, and even contribute to decarbonisation through heat recovery and smart controls.
The key recommendations include an updated EU Heating and Cooling Strategy that reflects the unique challenges of the cooling sector, strengthened Ecodesign and Energy Labelling frameworks to ensure best-in-class cooling equipment, provision of targeted financial incentives for sustainable cooling solutions, integration of cooling needs into the European Commission’s Renovation Wave, which aims to renovate 35 million buildings by 2030, the recognition of the HVACR industry’s contribution to EU industrial strategy and the importance of fully implementing the F-gas regulation.
“After another hot summer, awareness of the importance of sustainable cooling is rising in the Brussels policy sphere. But there are still major misapprehensions about the nature of the challenge,” commented Eurovent deputy secretary general, Stijn Renneboog.
“Cooling is about much more than comfort. It is of critical importance in a wide range of essential applications, including healthcare, food, AI, and net-zero manufacturing. Cooling demand is sure to rise across all these applications, and we must prepare for this new reality now.”
The document can be downloaded free of charge on the Eurovent website.
