ASHRAE Joins Initiative to Support Opportunities for Women in the Cooling Sector  

The International Network for Women in Cooling has been created to advance engagement, promote career opportunities and increase overall participation of women in the cooling sector, which includes refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat pumps.

The initiative is led by the World Refrigeration Day Secretariat and the United Nations Environment Programme OzonAction, in cooperation with the following influential international organizations representing the building industry worldwide: AIRAH (Australia), AREA (Europe), ASHRAE (Global), CAR (China), FAIAR (Latin America), IIR (Global), IOR (UK), ISHRAE (India), JSRAE (Japan), U-3ARC (Africa), and Women in HVAC&R (North America).

INWIC will connect women in the predominantly male cooling sector, empowering success through networking, mentoring, education and opportunities to shine as visible role models. It will also offer an avenue to individual women to gain career experience and development that may otherwise prove inaccessible.

The INWIC initiative contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, the UN’s blueprint for addressing global challenges to achieve a better and more sustainable future.

Goals of the initiative include:

• Gender equality for women, including equality of opportunity.
• Improved livelihoods through job creation and employment.
• Making cities and people’s lives more sustainable.
• Climate adaptation and mitigation.

The INWIC initiative’s founding partners will introduce several programs that directly support individual women and young girls to further engage and find opportunities that can support career advancement, exposure to cooling education disciplines and active engagement with the cooling community.