ECOS | Environmental Coalition on Standards

14 May 2019

ECOS and partners welcome IEC positive vote on commercial refrigeration

ECOS is very pleased to welcome a newly-approved standard that will allow larger quantities of climate-friendly alternatives to fluorinated gases in commercial refrigeration.

ECOS is very pleased to welcome a newly-approved standard that will allow larger quantities of climate-friendly alternatives to fluorinated gases in commercial refrigeration. The positive vote was confirmed last week in the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

Fewer barriers to natural refrigerants

The newly-approved international standard IEC 60335-2-89 provides safety requirements for commercial refrigerating appliances and contains positive amendments to the previous version, which posed barriers to the use of climate-friendly flammable refrigerants (i.e. propane) through tight limits to the allowed charge size. A publication of the standard with the current provisions in place will pave the way for the increase of the use of climate-friendly refrigerants – a significant contribution towards the mitigation of climate change. As Rita Tedesco, ECOS Programme Manager in charge of refrigerants said: This outcome is a milestone in the mitigation of climate change and the implementation of climate legislation, which is now de facto being hindered by safety standards. 

Lengthy process

The positive vote was a result of a complicated process. Firstly, the standard was developed without the participation of civil society stakeholders: ECOS has yet to be allowed to join and directly contribute to the IEC Technical Committee (TC61) which worked on the standard. Despite these challenges, however, ECOS together with a number of partners (NGOs, business associations and industries), co-signed a position paper inviting national standardisation bodies to cast a positive vote and approve the standard. Added to the lack of transparency were the efforts of chemical lobbies to undermine 6 years of discussions and a progressive final draft.

The vote and complications

The initial result of the vote was presented as negative due to a miscalculation of votes. In view of this, ECOS and other stakeholders [1] issued a request to the IEC to review one of the votes, which was not compliant with the IEC procedural rules, to recount the result and correct it. Consequently, the IEC 60335-2-89 standard was eventually approved at the beginning of May.

Need for more transparency and inclusiveness in standardisation

We very much hope that this positive result will pave the way for a wider allowance of climate-friendly refrigerants in standards beyond commercial refrigeration, and we stress that, in order to achieve this, a more transparent and inclusive standardisation process is necessary.

 

[1] DUH (Deutsche Umwelthilfe), EIA UK, EIA US, GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft fűr Internationale Zusammenarbeit), Greenpeace, Legambiente, ZERO (Associação Sistem Terrestre Sustentavel)

ECOS is co-funded by the European Commission and EFTA Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EISMEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

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