MEP Engineers Urge Collective Action on Refrigerant Emissions

Common refrigerants used to heat and cool buildings “can drive up to 75% of the embodied carbon emissions related to HVAC systems,” according to MEP 2040, a group of signatories committed to building decarbonization. The group recently issued a call to action to speed progress toward its 2040 net-zero target.

Typical refrigerants like R-410A and R-134a are powerful greenhouse gases.

Formed by the Carbon Leadership Forum, MEP 2040 is a coalition of engineers and other designers of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems. To push toward total-life-cycle decarbonization, including embodied and operational carbon, the group is tackling one of the biggest causes of greenhouse gas emissions: refrigerants.

Typical refrigerants like R-410A and R-134a are powerful greenhouse gases that can escape into the atmosphere during installation, operation, and disposal of HVAC equipment. The global warming potential (GWP) of these gases is enough of a concern that the book Drawdown rated reducing refrigerant GWP as the number one action we can take to combat climate change. MEP 2040 now has a Call to Action in the form of letter templates professionals can customize and send to manufacturers to request MEP equipment with next-generation low- GWP and no-GWP replacements.

The Sustainable Refrigerants for MEP Systems template joins those for Subcontractor Take-off Data (which gathers information on materials to inform embodied carbon decisions) and MEP Product Transparency (requesting environmental product declarations from manufacturers).