ATLANTA – Illustrating that concerns about the built environment are shared worldwide, ASHRAE and the Japan Society of Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (JSRAE) recently made a commitment to collaborate by signing a memorandum of understanding.
The MOU was signed last month at ASHRAE Headquarters in Atlanta. The two groups are agreeing to advance and promote the mutual interests of engineering and built environment professionals. ASHRAE currently has 157 members in Japan.
Working with JSRAE allows ASHRAE to expand its reach into countries that can contribute to and benefit from the technology and information sharing in the Society, Gordon Holness, ASHRAE president, said. This will help in creating a worldwide best practices databank of innovative and successful technologies that can serve the HVAC&R community.
It brings me much pleasure that ASHRAE and JSRAE have reached an agreement to explore collaboration on advanced refrigerant management along with other important HVAC&R issues, Momoki Katakura, president, Japan Society of Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers, said. This MOU will surely stand as a monumental event in the history of both of our organizations. I sincerely hope that both organizations will continue to play a leading global role through innovative and inspiring mutual consultation geared toward positive solutions to the problems facing us.
JSRAE is being proactive in building an industry infrastructure for refrigerant tracking and management that they hope will eventually be adopted into law in Japan. ASHRAE is tracking this JSRAE initiative very closely. JSRAE representatives are interested in the ongoing development of ASHRAE Standard 147, Reducing the Release of Halogenated Refrigerants from Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Equipment and Systems, which is closely related to the refrigerant management issue. Standard 147 is currently under revision.
Other items discussed at the MOU signing were:
- Establishing liaisons within each organizations technical committee structure as a means for collaborating in research, standards development, etc.
- Sending speakers to each others annual conference to keep a good ongoing exchange of information.
- Making respective members aware of new technical publications and documents.
Both JSRAE and ASRHAE have long histories, with JSRAE founded in 1925 and ASHRAE in 1894. Both publish four-volume Handbooks for their members.
JSRAE consists of about 6,000 individual members and some 460 corporate members, and is active with an aim to promote the science and technology in the fields of refrigeration, air conditioning, food refrigeration and others.
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