Yale Cooling Conference: Public Synthesis Report

On February 20-21, 2025, The Carbon Containment Lab—alongside its partners and supporters at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY), the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale (ISPS), Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council (SPLC), and Refrigerant Emissions Elimination Forum (REEF)—convened a high-impact group of industry experts, advocacy organizations, policymakers, and academic researchers at The Yale School of Management to collaborate on advancing the scale-up of lifecycle refrigerant management (LRM) practices.

On the first day of the conference, the Public Opening Plenary featured keynote speakers who described the scale of the climate problem and the potential for LRM to address it. Then, industry leaders from A-Gas, IKEA, Stulz, Trane Technologies, and an expert from the grocery sector shared best practices and case studies on refrigerant management. A total of 400 participants from over 50 countries attended the event, either in person or online. You can find the recording of the session here.

On the second day, the invitation-only workshop brought together 67 stakeholders from across the refrigerant ecosystem, including end-users of refrigerants, equipment manufacturers, reclaimers, advocacy organizations, policymakers, and carbon credit project developers and buyers. From the workshop, numerous opportunities to integrate LRM solutions into broader business operations surfaced, including a phased implementation approach, elevated data collection and management strategies, improved standards and recognition programs, and increased ambition by all upstream and downstream stakeholders.

This synthesis report provides an executive summary of the key action items to accelerate and scale up LRM that garnered the strongest consensus during the conference and are likely to gain the most momentum in the current political and industrial landscape, as compiled and prioritized by the Carbon Containment Lab team.