In 2016, leading climate foundations collaborated ahead of the Montreal Protocol meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, and pledged more than $50 million to create the largest-ever fund of its kind for action on efficient, climate-friendly cooling. The following spring, the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP) was born, under the management of a new secretariat assembled by and housed at ClimateWorks Foundation.

In the four year since then, K-CEP has grown from a bright idea to a thriving program that has achieved significant and measurable results. In addition to securing sizable greenhouse gas emissions reductions, the program has helped place cooling on the global agenda, shining a spotlight on an issue that was often overlooked in terms of both its human impact and mitigation potential.

Impact event highlights

Today we came together with our funding partners and implementing partners to celebrate the successes of our collective efforts of the last four years and to launch our 2017-2021 (i.e., ‘K-CEP Phase I’) impact report – Scaling up clean cooling for all. In addition to estimating the emissions reductions and cost savings of our network’s actions, the report looks at the wide range of accomplishments we have made since 2017 to support the global transition to efficient, climate-friendly cooling.  

We are excited to report that through the hard work of our team and partners, we expect to secure 4.2 gigatons of avoided CO2 emissions by 2050, with 2.4 Gt CO2 emissions reductions already locked in. In total, this represents $960 billion in cost savings over the same period. Theses significant impacts have resulted from meeting a range of ambitious milestones, including but not limited to:

• Making direct investments to advance efficient, climate-friendly cooling in 57 countries.
• Mobilizing the investment of over $600 million in public and private finance to steer consumers and institutions toward more efficient, climate-friendly cooling products.
• Supporting the proposal, adoption, or implementation of 21 cooling appliance standards around the world. 
• Developing a network of more than 54 partner organizations, 99 business partnerships, and more than 100 Cool Coalition partners to drive change in the cooling sector.
• Influencing the integration of cooling into comprehensive national climate policies.

Read more about our K-CEP Phase I impact report in our recent press release, here.

Today’s event gave some funders and other stakeholders a chance to reflect on their time working alongside K-CEP. It was heartening to hear such encouraging sentiments from so many dear colleagues. We look forward to many more years of meaningful and impactful collaboration!

As per tradition, we also used our annual meeting to give some well-deserved recognition to a few of our grantees and partners. While we wish we could give awards to all of our partners and grantees, this year’s winners were:

• Ashden (Cool Storytelling)
• ESMAP / Energy Foundation China / NRDC (High-Impact on Cooling)
• BASE (Cool Trailblazing)
• Cool Coalition / Brazilian Institute for Climate and Society (The Strongest Collaborations)
• Government of Rwanda (Lifetime Commitment to Cooling)

Introducing the Clean Cooling Collaborative…

We also took today’s event as an opportunity to share a few big announcements with our network of partners and funders. In addition to introducing and welcoming our new director, Noah Horowitz, we also launched our new name – the Clean Cooling Collaborative. 

As the first phase of the program comes to an end and focus shifts beyond cooling efficiency, we thought now was the right moment to refresh our brand, aligning it to the more comprehensive approach we will be taking as we move forward. We feel that this new identity better reflects our growing role in building a global coalition that works across policy, finance, and industry to decarbonize the cooling sector worldwide. 

Continuing to work in partnership with the global cooling community that K-CEP helped to establish, as well as embracing new strategic collaborations, we, as the Clean Cooling Collaborative, are looking forward to carrying on K-CEP’s Phase I legacy of ensuring efficient, climate-friendly cooling for all.

Read more about this transition in our recent press release, here.