On Thursday 26 June, AREA and its members will be celebrating World Refrigeration Day 2025.
This year’s theme celebrates the incredible range of skills that make modern life possible through refrigeration, air-conditioning, heat pumps, and sustainable heating technologies. From hands-on technicians to engineers, trainers, researchers, and innovators – 'Cool Skills' (#WRD2025 #CoolSkills) honours the human expertise that keeps our world cool, warm, comfortable, and sustainable.
On this occasion, we are delighted to share some activities that AREA members are hosting on and around this key day for our sector:
 | CNI will launch the #COLDERTHAN challenge (BY CNI) on social media one week earlier: What's it about? A short and fun online video challenge (recorded on a mobile 30secs) where students (and vocational training centers) show in 30 seconds: 👉 What is the "coldest" thing you can say, do, or teach? With humor, creativity, and a reference to the profession. Examples:
Format: Videos recorded on a mobile phone, 30-45 seconds maximum Upload location: Each center publishes it on Instagram or TikTok with the official hashtag: #ColderThan, #CNIChallenge, #WorldRefrigerationDay Who's participating?
CNI will also be a member of the evaluation committee for the 2nd iClima Awards for excellence in thermal and air conditioning installations in Spain. The awards ceremony and gala dinner will be held on June 25 in Madrid, and the iClima 2025 Awards will be presented to installation companies in the following categories:
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 | In Greece, conferences will be held by the National Technical University of Athens, at the occasion of WRD25, with keynote speakers such as Trevor Matthews, passionate trainer, mentor and many others. More information in the pdf program below 👇 |
 | APIRAC is organising the seminar ‘Standardisation in Refrigeration and Air Conditioning 2025’ on 26 June at the Montepio Geral Mutual Association Auditorium in Lisbon. The event is part of APIRAC's activities within the Portuguese Quality System (SPQ), as a Sectoral Standardisation Body (ONS APIRAC), together with the Portuguese Quality Institute (ONN-Portugal), which includes two Technical Standardisation Committees CT 56, ‘Refrigeration - Refrigeration installations and applications’ and CT 185 AVAC – ‘Applications, systems and management of installations in buildings’. Given this status, ONS APIRAC has exclusive responsibility for dealing with issues related to standardisation in Portugal, in terms of producing normative documents for the sector, as well as monitoring normative activities carried out at European and international level, in the respective bodies (CEN, CENELEC, IEC and ISO). The main objective of the event is to publicise the most recent standardisation work produced by ONS APIRAC, Standards and Technical Guides, and to discuss highly topical issues in the field of standardisation. The programme includes content of interest to both areas – Refrigeration and Air Conditioning – with each part of the day dedicated to the intervention of each of the Technical Committees. More information about this event content and participants (in Portuguese) can be found here: https://apiracapirac.wixsite.com/ons2025. You can also find a English translation of the program below. |
 | In preparation for World Refrigeration Day 2025, Frixis is interviewing partners from the HVAC-R sector on the topic of ‘Cool Skills’. We want to find out what skills will be essential for the technicians of tomorrow and how education and industry can work together to train young people for this future-oriented sector. We ask them to tell us about their career paths, their vision of technical education and the role that natural refrigerants play in this field. We also discuss how schools and businesses can work together to address the shortage of refrigeration technicians and the policy measures needed to encourage more young people to pursue training in HVAC. |
