Danfoss, a market leader in the manufacture of variable speed drives, soft starters, refrigeration components, compressors and switches, joins the global cooling community in commemorating the third global World Refrigeration Day (WRD) on June 26, 2021, celebrating the technologies, and importantly the people, behind this industry.

“Worldwide, cooling has become an essential part of modern society,” explains recently appointed senior sales director for Climate Solutions, Turkey, Middle East and Africa (TMA), Aleksandar Jovanovic. “We’ve seen rapid development within the sector, with the need for cooling intensifying based on four major factors, namely population growth, rising incomes, global warming, and urbanisation. Refrigeration is at the very heart of life today. It enables people to live, travel and work comfortably. It even saves lives.

“World Refrigeration Day was established to raise awareness and focus attention on the significant role the cooling industry plays in people’s lives today, from food processing, preservation and production, to the pharmaceutical sector, where it is used for the effective transport of products like medicines and vaccines, as well as helping to maintain comfortable working and living conditions,” he continues. “And not only are chilled vaccines safely delivered to millions in need, other examples of the pivotal role cooling plays today include surgeons operating in air-conditioned hospitals, and low-carbon heating solutions (heat-pumps) keeping people warm.

“Cooling is also critical in the delivery of food in hygienically safe conditions. The fact is that around 30 percent of all food globally produced is wasted, and a big part of the blame is laid on our inability to preserve food better. Air-conditioning, which now contributes to ten percent of the global world electricity consumption, is extremely important here, as it helps fight food waste by extending the shelf-life through the cold chain.”

The international awareness day observes the birthday of William Thomson, also known as Lord Kelvin, one of the nineteenth century’s most distinguished scientists, renowned for inventing the international system of absolute temperature that bears his name. 2021 marks the third official iteration of WRD, with growing support from industry, professional groups, scientific and engineering associations, governments and individuals globally.

The 2021 WRD campaign, with the theme this year entitled ‘Cooling Champions: Cool Careers for a Better World’, draws particular attention to careers within the refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat-pump industry. Currently, more than 15 million people are involved in designing, building, servicing and regulating over five billion operational cooling systems worldwide.

“As a business with a footprint in more than 100 countries, research and development and lab and testing facilities on three continents, as well as manufacturing facilities in Europe, China, India, North America and Mexico, this is a theme that holds great significance for Danfoss Cooling,” adds Jovanovic. “We are proud to celebrate our people across the globe who help to provide energy efficient, sustainable cooling solutions on WRD 2021.”

Earlier this year, Danfoss changed its group structure to combine the Heating and Cooling segments into Danfoss Climate Solutions, with the aim of helping customers and partners take action to mitigate climate change and build a greener future.

Danfoss Climate Solutions holds leading positions within sustainable and energy efficient solutions for industry, the built environment and the entire food chain, and will leverage the climate agenda and the targets in the ‘Paris Agreement’ and in the EU Green Deal as strong driving forces in accelerating efforts. With the new Danfoss Climate Solutions segment, Danfoss will further strengthen its focus on innovation and application expertise to become an even stronger technology partner for customers and partners