• Our History

    The REEF initiative stemmed from a very simple question, “Does an organization exist to coordinate the collective voice of owner-operators seeking to overcome refrigerants as a barrier to achieving climate objectives?”

     

    Despite notable efforts from several organizations, the answer was, “No. There is no single entity dedicated to this growing problem."

     

    In response, three industry leaders with extensive backgrounds co-founding and leading successful environmental non-profits including the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council (NASRC) organized a convening partner event at the October 2022 VERGE Climate Conference. The event brought together a multi-stakeholder group of refrigerant experts, corporate sustainability leaders, NGOs, and government organizations. The resulting collaboration produced a clearly defined problem statement, a confirmed need for collective action, an outline of REEF’s vision and mission, and early-stage objectives for the REEF organization.

    The Problem Statement

    Refrigerant gasses are powerful, growing, and overlooked drivers of climate change. Many refrigerant products in widespread use today can trap thousands of times more heat in the atmosphere than CO2. Collectively, refrigerants are also the world’s fastest growing category of greenhouse gasses. As a result, Project Drawdown estimates that reducing and better managing high global warming potential (high-GWP) refrigerants could avoid .5 C of warming by 2100. However, policy action on refrigerants is currently far too slow to meet international climate targets, and businesses are only beginning to pay attention to the topic.

    Our Vision

    We envision a world in which there is zero climate and environmental impact from refrigerants used in cooling and heat pump technologies.

    Our Mission

    We inspire and drive business action on Scope 1 refrigerant emissions, as a means to transform the broader refrigerant landscape toward zero climate and environmental impact.

  • How We Work to Drive Change

    Educate

    Educate business and government decision-makers and key partners on the magnitude, impact, and urgency of the refrigerant challenge.

    Engage

    Engage businesses and other organizations in using their collective buying power and voice to accelerate development of climate-friendly refrigerant technology and supportive policy at state and federal level.

    Empower

    Empower businesses and governments to take action on refrigerants in their own operations, often via peer-to-peer learning.

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