The half-year meeting of AREA, on May 23-24 2024, was held in Belfast, with the organization cared by the local association BESA. It was attended by twenty-eight people coming from around twenty European associations of the RACHP sector and various guests. It was chaired by Coen Van De Sande, candidate President for a renewal of the two-year mandate.
The proceedings of the four Working Groups took place the first meeting day and the Federation’s work of technical-legislative in-depth study is structured on them. The groups are in fact focused on the thorough analysis of the legislative initiatives on a Community scale and on the production of documents that are then submitted to the attention of the competent offices, due to the attentive and methodical work of the Secretary managed by Claire Grossman.
Work groups’ activities
The Sustainable Innovation Group drew the attention of all participants on the development state-of-the-art of EU policies such as Net Zero Industry Act, the Ecodesign and the new Energy Performance Building Directive, matters deeply felt by all attending people due to their actual impact on both the market development and on the repercussions in terms of additional competences that the evolution of the regulation on the product and on the expected energy efficiency results will generate on the operativity on the field.
Human Capital Group outlined the European policies of job placement and work mobility of the sector and of the training and inclusive projects by AREA on a European and international scale, other theme that attracts great attention by the Federation, in virtue of the increasingly widespread risk of scarcity of skilled and qualified staff in our market.
The team who has been dedicated, and still continues its work, on the Refrigerant theme has updated the progress state of the implementation acts of the new F-gas regulation and of the investigation on PFAS, building on the recent work drafts that the Commission has proposed for the Executive Regulation and examining the state-of-the-art of ECHA Committees’ proceedings in PFAS ambit.
The report by the Legislation&Standards Group focused on the progress state of processes that concern some sector regulations such as EN378, a theme that needs utmost attention due to the relevance that currently this regulation already holds as methodological framework for the activities of design, installation and maintenance of refrigeration circuits where safety is constantly taken into account as priority.
The general assembly was held the following day and it summarized the proceedings of the previous day, it set up a new asset in the board, welcomed new associations (Romania), updated about the economic balance sheet and about communication activities and organized next meetings (Chillventa October 2024 and Istanbul May 2025).
