Cooling for All
Cooling for All’s mission is to generate the evidence, partnerships, policy and business solutions necessary to provide sustainable cooling for all and to reduce the energy demand needed to achieve this.
Cooling for All does not mean an air-conditioner or refrigerator in every home; it means providing affordable and sustainable solutions to address the needs of the vulnerable, such as access to nutritious food and safe medicines and protection from heat in the transition to clean energy.
According to our Chilling Prospects report, 1.02 billion people are at high risk due to lack of access to cooling and a further 2.2 billion lack access to clean and efficient cooling.
In a warming world, access to sustainable cooling is not a luxury. It is an issue of equity and a service that must be delivered to all to achieve SDG7.
This award, supported by K-CEP in partnership with Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), will spotlight the best initiatives alleviating heat stress, and help make solutions accessible and affordable to those in greatest need. It focuses on affordable non-mechanised cooling solutions, such as temperature-lowering roof and wall adaptations, natural ventilation systems, evaporative cooling and the use of plants, trees and structures to provide cooling shade. Entries close 3 March 2021.
Across 54 high-impact countries, 1.02 billion people among the rural and urban poor remain at high risk in 2020. This includes 318 million people living in poor rural areas and 699 million living in poor urban areas.
Our This Is Cool campaign is a celebration of what can be done and is a response to the Chilling Prospects findings. It aims to bring greater awareness of the solutions and aims to show what can be done across the world to make sustainable cooling for all a reality. Whether you’re a policymaker, organisation, government employee, company or individual, you can help to make affordable and sustainable cooling for all a reality by taking part in this campaign today.
Selected media coverage
Renewable energy could fix COVID vaccine distribution, Reuters
10 sustainable cooling trends in Africa for 2020, ESI Africa
COVID-19 vaccines raise hope but the 'last mile' challenge looms, Reuters
How your fridge is heating up the planet, BBC
Hotter days ahead, but cooling India can't be only about air-conditioning, Economic Times, India
Factbox: Heat is on to bring cooling to 1 billion people without it, Reuters
Lack of Sustainable Cooling Threatens Safety, Health and Food Security of Hundreds of Millions, IISD Knowledge Hub
Nigeria, Liberia, 10 others at risk of public safety, health, food security – Report, The Guardian, Nigeria
Health and safety of 1 billion people at risk from lack of access to cooling, Economic Times, India
Cooling for All Secretariat
The Cooling for All Secretariat is a platform for coordinating responses to address access to cooling. The Secretariat aims to identify the challenges of providing access to affordable, sustainable cooling solutions for all, and to seize opportunities to support access initiatives.
The Secretariat takes an “efficiency-first” approach that emphasizes the need to think systematically about what cooling services people require and how to deliver them in a way that minimizes energy demands. This gives priority to simple solutions, like white roofs/walls, alongside other high-efficiency cooling technologies that run on sustainable energy.
Our work is guided by the Global Panel on Access to Cooling, a group of leaders from business, philanthropy, policy and academia committed to providing Cooling for All.
Learn more about the need for sustainable cooling through our flagship report Chilling Prospects or by exploring our Knowledge and Data resources and the Access to Cooling Initiatives supported by the Secretariat.
