Cool-Safe & Climate Change Commission Post Event Report

On May 21, Cool-Safe hosted the Climate Change Commission for a special event at the Lower Hutt Events Centre titled F-gases and the Future. A forum for discussion on New Zealand’s emissions budgets and the importance of F-gas management in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, F-gases and the Future was a great success.

Cool-Safe CE Janine Brinsdon announced significant changes to some key Cool-Safe initiatives that will support industry in recovering as much waste refrigerant as possible.

Cool-Safe’s Bounty Buy-Back programme has been a key tool in managing the responsible collection and destruction of waste refrigerant. That bounty price has now increased by 62% from $25/kg to $40/kg for all mixed refrigerants, including CFCs, collected by Cool-Safe from May 1. As an environmental trust, Cool-Safe wants all redundant refrigerant safely destroyed so that potential harm is mitigated, so the bounty price is consistent across all waste refrigerants whether they are covered by the ETS or not.

Cool-Safe also announced an expansion of their Courier Service. The Coolest Courier will now collect recovery cylinders from anywhere in the country, take them to a decanting site, and then return them, all at no cost to the user. This change means that refrigerant recovery is available to any business anywhere in New Zealand. Courier bookings are handled through a simple online form.

Cool-Swap has expanded also, with more recovery cylinders available meaning that businesses can use Cool-Swap cylinders to increase their recovery capacity. Any new sign ups to Cool-Swap by 1 July will be automatically entered to win $500 cash.

The expansion of these key projects will be welcome news to Cool-Safe’s network of over 4,000 organisations and professionals in New Zealand’s HVACR sector.

Cool-Safe has a long history of leading the way in responsible refrigerant recovery, being the first organisation to begin actively collecting waste refrigerant back in 1993. Since then, Cool-Safe has Reduced the build-up of GHG by 1,496,691 tonnes of CO2 equivalent and saved 39,800 tonnes of ozone depletion.

The more refrigerant recovered through Cool-Safe, the more money that is reinvested into the HVACR sector. The expansion of these key Cool-Safe initiatives means more money support of industry, more refrigerant recovered and destroyed, and more greenhouse gas emissions avoided.

Note: Cool-safe is a product stewardship scheme run by the Trust for the Destruction of Synthetic Refrigerants. Cool-Safe is on a mission to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from the discharge of synthetic refrigerants by 90%, from 2018 levels, by 2035. Cool-Safe is funded by NZUs collected on destruction of recovered refrigerant and operates with zero government or industry funding.

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