Julius Banks is an environmental engineer at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC. He has over a decade of refrigerant regulatory experience, and currently serves as the team lead for EPA’s refrigerant programs. He developed and currently leads voluntary programs to reduce use and emissions of ozone depleting and GHG refrigerants in the supermarket industry (i.e. GreenChill Partnership) and the safe disposal of residential refrigerated appliances (i.e., Responsible Appliance Disposal (RAD) program).

Julius holds advanced degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Environmental Science. He has served on several ASHRAE and other technical committees, including the United Nations Environment Programme’s –Technology and Economic Assessment Panel (TEAP), Refrigerant Technical Options Committee.

Katja Becken is a policy advisor at the German Federal Environment Agency. For the last ten years she has been responsible for issues regarding ozone depleting substances and fluorinated greenhouse gases. Her main focus was on technical emission control measures, environmentally sound substitutes as well as the implementation of measures at the national or European level.

Katja Becken obtained her degree from the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, in 1999 after studying environmental engineering and technical chemistry. She complemented her studies by courses in environmental management at the University of Nottingham, UK.

Souvik Bhattacharyya graduated from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India with a Bachelor’s degree, Masters from University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA and PhD from Texas A&M University, USA all in Mechanical Engineering specialising in thermal sciences. He is on the Editorial Board of three international journals: Energy Conversion and Management, International Journal of Power and Energy Systems and Journal of Nano Energy and Power Research. His current research interests are heat transfer enhancement, thermodynamic optimization, natural refrigerants and natural circulation loops. Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, he is also a member of the Section Committee of the Academy and is an expert member on the Dept. of Science of Technology, Fast Track Project Committee. He won the ASHRAE best Paper Award while he was a doctoral student at Texas A&M.

After finishing the mechanical engineering degree in Brussels, Jan Boone started working with MAYEKAWA (MYCOM) since 1979 in heavy duty industrial gas compressors. His experience was built-up as member of most of the company divisions from sales, engineering, production, quality, and service activities with profound interaction with Mayekawa Japan with focus on customer relations and optimised product-operation in the field.

Mayekawa focuses on natural refrigerants. In fact, the company is applying NH₃ since more than 85 years and CO₂ as well as hydrocarbons since more than 40 years.

Christoph Brouwers started his professional life with an apprenticeship as refrigeration mechanic. Right after completion his studies he joined the former Linde Kältetechnik – later acquired by Carrier Corporation - in 1992 working as field inspection and commissioning engineer in the field of commercial and industrial refrigeration all over Europe and has come in touch with nearly all types of different refrigeration systems and refrigerants.

After having taken over different management positions in the areas of technical services, installation and project engineering he has been appointed quite recently as CO₂OLtec Business Director focussing on transcritical CO₂ turnkey solutions for all types of Food Retail shop formats.

Javier Camargo has been Advisor of the Office of the International Affairs in the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Territorial Development since 1995, dependant of the Minister’s Office, in charge among other things of the Montreal Protocol issues, attending since then a number of Executive Committee of the Multilateral Fund meetings and also Meeting of the Parties as government representative. He was chairman of the former Sub Committee on Project Review of the Executive Committee in 2002 and currently he is chairman of the Executive Committee during 2010.

In Colombia he works jointly with National Ozone Unit in order to implement country commitments under the Protocol taking into account national policy on air quality, waste management, post consume waste management, cleaner production among others.

Marc Chasserot is Managing Director of shecco, a B2B Marketing Company based in Brussels. He holds two Masters Degrees, one in Marketing and another in Politics. He has studied at the London School of Economics, Sciences Po Paris, College of Europe and INSEAD.

He has worked with Natural Refrigerants since 2003, either as Marketing Manager for shecco or previously as EU Public Affairs Manager of Norsk Hydro. He is a Member of the Refrigeration Committee of ASHRAE.

Daniel Colbourne is a consultant working on environmental, efficiency, safety and developmental aspects of alternative refrigerants. He is currently involved in a number of projects with GTZ Proklima on implementation of natural refrigerants in a variety of applications.

Luca Costantini is founder and owner of BLUPURA , an Italian manufacturing company of mains fed watercoolers. After years of experience in this industry, BLUPURA was founded 3 years ago with the goal to be the first in the watercooler industry to use natural refrigerants (R290). In 2010 Blupura is still the sole watercoolers manufacturer in the world to use R290 instead of R134 , exporting 80% of its turnover.

Didier Coulomb is the Director of the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR), an intergovernmental organisation comprising 61 Member countries and many private and corporate members. In previous roles he worked for the French Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry where he was more specifically in charge of technology and innovation (1984-1993). He then worked at the French Research Ministry, in particular as Deputy Director for innovation and technological development (1994-2002), and as General Secretary to the CIRAD Centre for General Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development till 2004.

Didier Coulomb is a qualified engineer of the Ecole Polytechnique de Paris (1982) and the Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural, des Eaux et des Forêts (1984), and of the Institut des Stratégies Industrielles (1995).

Nicholas Cox is considered a leading authority on environmentally friendly refrigeration and air conditioning. Throughout his long career, he has presented many papers on the subject. A fellow of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management, he was awarded a graduate ship of the City and Guilds of London Institute for his work on how industry could better utilise natural refrigerants and energy efficiency. He has advised both the UK Government and the EU Commission on environmental aspects of refrigeration and air conditioning, and he has carried out reviews and submitted written responses to proposed and pending policy documents and legislation regarding refrigerant issues.

Philippe de Rougemont is board member of the Noé21 F gas campaign. Noe21, an independent NGO based in Geneva, is already active in promoting a new methodology for CDM credits intended to burn HFC23. The new chapter of the Noe21 F gas campaign that Philippe works on will concentrate on India to promote the uptake of fluorocarbon-free cooling technologies by supermarket chains. The campaign is in its planning and fundraising stage and will be carried out in collaboration with an Indian NGO. Philippe has held various positions these last 20 years as freelance journalist and for green NGOs on issues such as phasing out nuclear power plants, promoting energy demand side management, banning GMOs and promoting post-car transport systems.

Philippe Delpech is President of Carrier Commercial Refrigeration, one of Carrier Global Division. Carrier is the world’s leader in high technology heating, air-conditioning and refrigeration solutions and experts provide sustainable solutions, integrating energy efficient products, building controls, and energy services for residential, commercial, retail, transport and foodservice customers.

Prior to joining Carrier, Philippe Delpech held various positions and was among those Executive Vice President at Danfoss Commercial Compressors and Sales & Marketing Director at ABB. Philippe Delpech holds a MBA from the European School of Management, Paris France, a Business degree from Insead Asia, a Business Administration Degree from IAE, France and a Bachelor in Science in Mechanical Engineering from ENIT, France.

Raphael Gerber is working for a Swiss consultant in refrigeration, being in charge of innovative technologies and especially CO₂. In the last years, he gained comprehensive experience in engineering sub- and transcritical CO₂ plants for different retail stores and has been involved in the design and realization of ground-braking refrigeration technologies with CO₂. Before entering the world of refrigeration, he used to work for a company offering technologies for technical gases, such as CO₂, in different applications. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering.

More information coming soon...

Tonje Haabeth is a policy officer in the European Commission, Directorate General Energy, Unit C3 "Energy Efficiency of Products and Intellingent Energy - Europe" since March 2010. She is particularly involved in the ecodesign and energy labelling of products. Tonje Haabeth is seconded from the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy where she has been employed since graduating in 2006. She holds a Master of Economic Theory and Econometrics from the University of Oslo and Humboldt Universitat, Berlin.

Dr.-Ing. Armin Hafner is a Research Scientist at SINTEF Energy Research, Norway, the largest independent research organisation in Scandinavia. Its Energy Research department offers solutions and services for CO₂ technology in refrigeration, mobile air conditioning, and heat pump systems. Armin is a well-known expert for CO₂ technology in different applications, having been involved in its research for many years.

Volkmar Hasse has been directing the Proklima program since 2003. For 27 years he has implemented various GTZ programs, living in five developing countries. He holds a PhD in Applied Biology.

Proklima is a GTZ program commissioned by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. It currently assists about 30 countries in complying with their obligations under the Montreal Protocol. 9 projects of the International Climate Initiative of the German Ministry of the Environment were added in 2008 and are currently under implementation. Since its inception in 1996, Proklima has developed and promoted concepts and technologies addressing equally important environmental, health and social issues.

Mrs. Hassi was Member of the Finnish Parliament for 13 years, since 1991, until her election to the European Parliament in June 2004. At the time of her election to the European Parliament, she was Vice-Chair of the Committee on Environment of the Finnish Parliament. In July 2004 Mrs. Hassi was elected Vice-Chair of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety in the European Parliament. She has been in the position of The Greens/EFA group´s ENVI committee coordinator since 2009.

Mrs. Hassi's educational background is in electrical power engineering. She has noticed that an educational background in science and technology gives a good basis especially for environmental decision making. According to Mrs. Hassi, it helps in understanding both the problems and the potential solutions.

As a Political and Media Consultant Brent Hoare is providing lobbying, media and stakeholder liaison services to Australia’s natural refrigerants industry association. His involvement includes the attendance at the 2007 Bali climate conference, and the 2008 Montreal Protocol Open Ended Working Group in Bangkok. Hoare is the Executive Director of the Green Cooling Association promoting genuinely climate friendly refrigerant solutions, including CO₂, ammonia, and hydrocarbons.

With M.Sc.E from Technical University of Denmark and a background in food processing and consultancy, Kenneth has worked in the refrigeration industry for more than 10 years in various capacities. He joined Star Refrigeration in 2005 as a Sales Engineer. In the beginning e was responsible for developing high density CO₂ server cooling and since 2009 as the CO₂ systems have turned into a mature product he was set in charge of Star’s new focus product: industrial heat pumps. He is now responsible for heat pump sales both in the UK and globally together with Star’s trusted local partners.

After receiving his PhD thesis for work on nuclear fusion at the Technical University Eindhoven, Lambert Kuijpers started work in the 1980s at Philips Research Labs Eindhoven, NL. He steered a research group dealing with heat transfer and thermodynamics, specifically in the area of refrigeration. Since 1988-89, Kuijpers has been particularly involved in the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel (TEAP) and the Refrigeration Technical Options Committee under the Montreal Protocol, which he both co-chairs. After having left Philips (in 1993) the work for UNEP has been the main emphasis (co-chairmanships of Panel, Committee and Task Forces).

 Mr. Anshu Kumar, freelance consultant, is involved in Ozone saving activities in India. He has completed his Master of Philosophy in Environmental Science from Delhi & pursuing his Doctorate in same subject.
He has worked with different agencies like INFRAS, GTZ Proklima, UNDP, UNEP, BEE & MoEF India. He is providing training to RAC technicians in North part of India for Good Service Practices & adoption to new refrigerants. He has trained almost 3000 technicians in the field of RAC. As a Trainer in BEE he has trained almost 4500 Sales person to Save Energy by adopting Star Label products like Refrigerator & Air-conditioners.

Janos Maté, M.A., is a Senior Consultant to the Political/Business Unit of Greenpeace International. Since 1992 he has represented Greenpeace International at the Montreal Protocol and at international meetings related to crossover issues between ozone layer and climate protection. His primary focus since 1992 has been advocating policies to phase-out the fluorocarbons, and promoting the uptake of fluorocarbon-free and environmentally sustainable cooling technologies.

He is the author of numerous Greenpeace papers, and his essays have been published in several governmental, UNEP and academic books and journals, as well as in industry magazines. Janos co-initiated the SolarChill Project which he has coordinated since its inception in 2000. The SolarChill Project developed an award winning, hydrocarbon based, led storage battery free, solar powered refrigeration technology for off-the-grid vaccine cooling and food preservation.

Miruza Mohamed has been working as Assistant Director at the Ministry of Housing and Environment of the Republic of Maldives since 2008. Previous positions included activities in the Ministry of Science & Technology, and the Ministry of Health. MIruza is responsible for the HCFC phase-out management plans of the Maldives and for pursuing a carbon-neutral policy.

Miruza holds a MSc in Urban Environmental Management from the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand.

Philip Owen joined the European Commission in 1990 having spent 12 years in the private sector working with KPMG. He has had a varied career with the Commission spending a number of years in DG Competition dealing with both merger and State aid cases including State aid to the automotive sector between 1996 and 1999. This was followed by three years in DG Regional Policy managing a number of Objective 1 and 2 programmes. He was in DG Environment from 2002 to 2010 having been in charge of the financial management Unit and well as the LIFE programme (DG Environment's project funding initiative).

After briefly following transport and air quality issues, Philip Owen took up responsibility for his current post, in DG Climate Action, in mid-February 2010. This post encompasses climate action policy for transport, road vehicles as well as dealing with ozone and fluorinated gas issues and the UN's Montreal Protocol.

Nidia Pabón Tello was born in Bogota, Colombia. She is a Chemical Engineer with studies of post graduate in Environmental Engineering. She has been working at the National Ozone Unit at the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Territorial Development of Colombia since June of 2003. In these seven years of experience in the implementation of the Montreal Protocol in her country, she has been responsible for the control of trade of Ozone Depleting Substances, the design of the different measures for the legal framework for the implementation of the CFC phase out plan and the technical assistance for the disposal of unwanted ODS and equipment with CFC.

Recently, she has been participating in the preparation of the HCFC phase out management plan that will be submitted to the next Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Montreal Protocol.

Alexander Cohr Pachai started in the refrigeration industry in 1978 and has been working with hydrocarbons since 1995 and CO₂ since 1997. He worked with both R&D, production, sales and installation of systems using these natural refrigerants. Pachai has sold and commissioned the first HC/CO₂ system in Auckland for a supermarket as well as the largest HC/CO₂ supermarket system in the UK. As pioneer in the field of natural refrigerants he has also sold, build and commissioned the first larger supermarket system using CO₂ in Denmark and the first large scale HC AC system for computer cooling.

Currently he is heavily involved with the phase-out of R22 especially in Europe, where no more virgin R22 can be used after 2009. Pachai has carried out a lot of training for technicians and engineers in using the above mentioned natural refrigerants in modern refrigeration plants.

Christianna Papazahariou heads the Government Affairs department of shecco in Brussels. She graduated from La Sorbonne University in Paris, France where she studied law. She is a qualified lawyer and has been dealing with European and international lobbying for the past six years.

In past positions she has worked as an adviser for European retailers on environmental policy before managing the European Cold Storage and Logistics Association. Christianna is also an accredited expert on environmental policy with the European Economic and Social Committee and is member of the Greek Chamber of Commerce

Mart Peeman is the Operational Director of Cofely Refrigeration and Vice President of the Dutch Association for Companies in Refrigeration and Air conditioning (NVKL). Cofely Refrigeration, part of GdfSuez, is the Dutch market leader in technical services. Cofely Refrigeration offers smart solutions in all areas based on solid knowledge of customer products and processes. The NVKL is the trade organisation representing companies that are active in utilising professional cooling techniques and air conditioning.

Giacomo Pisano obtained his Masters degree in mechanical engineering in 2002 and started working the same year for General Electric as a Project Manager. The company’s core business is gas turbine design, manufacturing and installation.

Since 2003, Pisano has been working for Dorin. He started in the R&D department focusing on the CO₂ compressors development and qualification protocols. Then he became CO₂ compressor Product Manager and is now also working as Technical Sales Manager.

Merle Rocke is Chairman and CEO of EcoThermics Corporation, an engineering design and services company located in the Peoria NEXT Innovation Center, Peoria, Illinois, USA. EcoThermics is currently focused on developing next generation heating and cooling systems – using a natural refrigerant – for a variety of applications anywhere in the world.

Prior to forming EcoThermics Corporation, Merle was Chief Operating Officer of CGN & Associates, a global management consulting firm. Prior to joining CGN, Merle founded his own consulting practice, M.G. Rocke & Associates, LLC, following retirement from Caterpillar Inc. as General Manager, Caterpillar Logistics Services, Inc. in 2002 after thirty-five years in a variety of management positions.

Mr Rowsome joined Carrefour’s Corporate Sustainability team in 2002. Carrefour is the leading retailer in Europe and 2nd worldwide. As Group Environmental Manager, Mr Rowsome is responsible for developing and implementing group environmental policy. He assists Carrefour operational teams with implementation in the different domains – stores, logistics, supply chain and merchandise. Mr Rowsome also assures dialogue with the Group’s various stakholders on environmental issues as well as communication to socially responsible investors and rating agencies on the Group’s performance.

Prior to this Mr Rowsome was Environmenal Affairs Manager with Philips Consumer Communications. Mr Rowsome worked on product and packaging eco-design, competitor benchmarking and management of health issues related to mobile telephony.

Rajendra Shende is a Chemical Engineer graduate from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology. He then gained extensive and varied corporate business experience that included mainstreaming of cleaner production, environmental impact assessment, energy efficiency, and renewable energy in the manufacturing processes. After a stint at corporate management level, he joined the international programme at UNEP Division of Technology, Industry and Economy in Paris in 1992. He is a policy advisor to the developing countries and countries with economies in transition in implementing the Montreal Protocol. Expert on international technology transfer and technology cooperation to deploy the environment friendly technologies, he built the OzonAction Programme.

Mr Sidi Menad is the director of the Montreal Protocol Branch of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and was the director of the Multilateral Environmental Agreements Branch of UNIDO. Before joining UNIDO, he was a director of environmental studies at the Ministry of Environment in Algeria.

Theodoros Skylakakis is a member of the European Parliament as well as a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. He is very knowledgeable with regards to Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and will help us understand how CDB credits benefit natural refrigerants.

Dr.-Ing. Jürgen Süss is today Vice President of Research and Development of the Automatic Controls Business Unit of Danfoss A/S in Denmark and takes responsibility for the future portfolio of controls and line components of Danfoss. Before that, he held various positions within the company and was among those heading the technological development of the Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Division at Danfoss and additionally lead the Advanced Engineering department.

Dr. Süss holds a Ph.D. in refrigeration and compressor technologies and joined Danfoss in September 1998 from the “Institut für Kältetechnik” at the University of Hannover. He is active in Commissions of the IIR and ASHRAE, as well as in various scientific committees and international refrigeration associations.

Rene van Gerwen joined Unilever in 2000 where he is responsible for all R & HVAC activities in Unilever, being one of the largest end-users of refrigeration in the world. A major part of his work is related to large industrial refrigeration plants for the production of ice cream, margarines and other chilled/frozen foods, mainly using ammonia as refrigerant, and to plug-in display freezer cabinets for the sales of ice cream. For these cabinets, he developed a global programme for using hydrocarbons as refrigerant.

Before joining Unilever, Rene was heading the Department of Refrigeration & Heat Pump Technology in the R&D & Testing Company TNO, where he was working on energy saving, safety, alternative refrigerants & technologies since 1987. Rene has an MSc degree in Mechanical Engineering (Refrigeration & Climate Control) at Delft University of Technology, Netherlands.

Andrea Voigt has been the Director General of EPEE since November 2009. She has been active in the HVACR industry for around 15 years, active in marketing and communications.

The European Partnership for Energy and the Environment (EPEE), represents the refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat pump industry in Europe. Founded in the year 2000, EPEE’s membership is composed of 40 member companies and national associations across Europe realising a turnover of over 30 Billion Euros and employing more than 200,000 people in Europe. As an expert association EPEE is supporting safe, environmentally and economically viable technologies with the objective to promote a better understanding of the sector in the EU and to contribute to the development of effective European policies.
For more information please visit: www.epeeglobal.org

Monika Witt was elected to the chair of the eurammon executive board in 2006. She is Managing Director of the Th. Witt Kältemaschinenfabrik GmbH in Aachen. Witt studied mechanical engineering at the RWTH Aachen and finished with a diploma in the field of process engineering. In 1991, she started as a project engineer for air separation plants at Messer Griesheim GmbH in Krefeld and moved in 1993 to MG Industries USA. In 1996, Witt joined the family business Th. Witt Kältemaschinenfabrik where she took over the managing position in 1998.

eurammon, the European initiative for natural refrigerants, is a joint initiative by companies, institutions and individuals committed to increasing the use of natural refrigerants. It sees itself as a centre of competence for the use of natural working fluids in refrigeration.

Ryoichi Yamamoto is a professor at the Institute of Industrial Science in Tokyo. Since 2004, he has been a science advisor at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Mr Yamamoto is also an honorary chairman of Eco Material Society, Chairman of International Green Purchasing Network as well as Chairman at The Centre for Sustainable Design.