ACCA Participates in Industry White House Roundtable on Refrigerants

October 15, 2015


ACCA President and CEO Paul Stalknecht today participated in a special White House Roundtable on HFC refrigerants, along with representatives of the HVACR industry’s leading businesses and trade associations and key Obama Administration officials from the U.S EPA, the State Department, and the Department of Energy. Participants discussed the industry’s progress since last year’s roundtable and announced new steps contractors, distributors, and manufacturers will be taking to promote recovery and reclamation of global warming refrigerants. Other trade association executives participating in the event included AHRI President and CEO Steve Yurek and HARDI CEO Talbot Gee.
 
“ACCA’s participation in today’s roundtable demonstrates that contractors play an important role in the policy development process," said Stalknecht. "The HVACR industry is at a critical crossroads as the Department of Energy is setting new energy efficiency standards for several product classes of HVACR equipment while simultaneously the U.S. EPA is initiating a regulatory phase down of refrigerants with a high global warming potential. Meanwhile the State Department is engaged in global discussions that will trigger a phase down of HFCs through the Montreal Protocol in the next few years.”

In advance of the roundtable, ACCA and the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, AHRI, HARDI, and EOS Climate announced a Memorandum of Understanding on incentivizing the increased deployment of reclaimed HFC refrigerants across the diversity of refrigeration and air conditioning applications, and creating a mechanism for refrigerant end-users to demonstrate commitment and leadership on climate change and refrigerant management through the development of an HFC Credit bank. 

Over the next three years, the signatories to the MOU will advance the following:


  • Minimize greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by maximizing recovery of HFC refrigerant, during equipment servicing and at equipment end-of-life, for processing and restoration to virgin-grade purity by EPA-certified reclaimers;
  • Efficient movement of reclaimed HFC refrigerant across distribution networks to service technicians for re-use to service existing equipment and for charging newly manufactured equipment;
  • Inclusion of verified emission reductions (VERs) issued by the American Carbon Registry (ACR) resulting from production and use of reclaimed HFC refrigerant, in conformance with a new GHG protocol approved by ACR - Emission Reduction Measurement and Monitoring Methodology for Use of Reclaimed HFC Refrigerants and Advanced Refrigeration Systems.
  • Purchase and retirement of VERs by users of HFC refrigerants as a means to demonstrate use of verified recycled refrigerant or to offset GHG emissions of HFC – including OEMs, government agencies, supermarkets, hotels, airports, shopping malls, office buildings, sports stadiums, and others;
  • Reporting of GHG reductions enabled through purchase of reclaimed HFC VERs to existing reporting frameworks (e.g., Carbon Disclosure Project, SASB, WRI/WBCSD);
  • Collaborate with the Global Refrigerant Management Initiative and other GHG reporting/accounting efforts to include HFC VERs in refrigerant management and GHG emission reduction strategies, as well as assistance in developing case studies and other relevant outreach materials.


The HFC credit bank will be developed as a pilot program in 2016 with the intent of full implementation in 2017. The bank will rely on the HFC reclaim protocol prepared by EOS Climate, and approved by the American Carbon Registry to provide certified carbon credits for reclaimed HFCs.

For more information on this new industry effort contact Charlie McCrudden, ACCA's senior vice president of goverenment relations at charlie.mccrudden@acca.org.

 

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ACCA is a non-profit association serving more than 60,000 professionals and 4,000 businesses in the indoor environment and energy services community. Our member firms are the nation's most professional contracting businesses, serving residential and commercial customers in every state. With roots stretching back a century, ACCA was incorporated in its present form nearly 50 years ago. Today, ACCA sets the standards for quality comfort systems, provides leading-edge education for contractors and their employees, and fights for the interests of professional contractors throughout the nation. Learn more about ACCA here.