Green Cooling Summit 2026: International discussion accelerates transition to natural refrigerants
The Green Cooling Summit 2026 relaunches the global debate on natural refrigerants and the barriers that hinder their deployment.
The transition to climate-friendly refrigerants continues to be one of the most pressing issues for the HVAC/R industry, but the path remains uneven globally. To address this gap, the Green Cooling Summit returns in 2026, an international event dedicated to strategies for accelerating and more concretely adopting natural refrigerants in cooling and air conditioning systems .
This year's edition focuses on a now evident contradiction: alternative technologies exist, they are available on the market, but their widespread diffusion is still proceeding too slowly.
R290 and natural refrigerants: a possible but still slow transition
The summit will focus in particular on the role of R290 (propane) , considered one of the most promising alternatives for air conditioning thanks to its extremely low GWP (0.02) and high energy performance. Despite these advantages, the market continues to be dominated by refrigerants such as R32, still widely used in split systems.
According to data presented by the organizers, approximately 90 million split air conditioners are sold worldwide each year, and replacing new R32-based systems with R290 alternatives could prevent the release of approximately 61 million tons of CO₂ equivalent into global refrigerant banks. This data highlights the real potential of the transition, but also the industry's accumulated delay.
Why change hasn't taken off yet
The Green Cooling Summit was created precisely to analyze the causes that slow the adoption of natural refrigerants , despite the recognized environmental and economic benefits. Among the main obstacles are:
- regulatory barriers and non-uniform safety standards across markets
- industrial resistance linked to investments and production adjustments
- lack of specialized technical skills along the supply chain
- slowness in updating installed infrastructure and systems
The issue therefore does not only concern technological availability, but the market's ability to adapt to a change that requires investment, training, and a review of industrial models.
A summit that looks beyond technology
The event, organized by the German Environment Agency (UBA) and GIZ Proklima, will not only present application cases and technical innovations: the summit will also address financing models, policy tools , and proven strategies to accelerate the transition to sustainable systems.
The international discussion will serve to bring together producers, technicians, policymakers, and stakeholders, with the aim of transforming a technically feasible transition into a truly scalable transformation.
The strategic hub for the future of refrigeration
For the HVAC/R industry, the Green Cooling Summit 2026 is a clear indicator: the refrigerant transition will not only depend on technological innovation, but on the ability to create favorable market conditions, adequate expertise, and consistent regulations.
The spread of natural refrigerants is now a clear direction. The real challenge today is to transform this vision into a global industry standard, making sustainable cooling no longer the exception, but the new normal.
FAQ
Natural refrigerants are assuming a central role, especially in commercial and industrial refrigeration and large, high-efficiency HVAC systems, where regulatory restrictions on fluorinated gases are accelerating the HFC phase-out. Applications such as supermarkets, cold storage facilities, cold storage logistics, and industrial heat pumps are increasingly adopting CO₂, ammonia, and propane to combine regulatory compliance, low GWP, and operational continuity. The choice depends on the application profile, environmental conditions, and safety requirements.
The main critical issues concern safety, system complexity, and the availability of specialized skills. CO₂ requires high pressure management, ammonia requires rigorous protocols due to toxicity, while hydrocarbons require explosion-proof measures due to flammability. Furthermore, infrastructure limitations persist in many markets: a shortage of trained technicians, limited availability of compatible components, and higher initial costs compared to conventional systems.
In the medium to long term, natural refrigerants ensure greater regulatory stability, reduced risk of technological obsolescence, and improved environmental sustainability thanks to their near-zero GWP. In many cases, they also offer high seasonal energy efficiency, especially when integrated with heat recovery and intelligent control systems. This makes them strategic not only for environmental compliance but also for reducing total cost of ownership (TCO).
