Marios Avraamides is a policy officer at the European Commission, Directorate General Environment, Unit C.4 – "Industrial Emissions and Protection of the Ozone Layer" since February 2007. He is in particular involved in the monitoring, implementation and development of EU policies on fluorinated greenhouse gases. Before joining the European Commission, Marios Avraamides was a Research Associate at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Cyprus. He holds a Master of Engineering in Civil Engineering with Environmental Management (UMIST) and a Master of Science in Sustainable Waste Management (University of Leeds).

Antoine Azar graduated from Liège University (ULG), Belgium, with a Masters in Electro-Mechanical Engineering.

Azar has been working for Coca-Cola for eight years. Since July 2008 he has been the Global Program Manager of sustainable refrigeration (eKOfreshment program) within the Environment & Water resources. Before this, he performed in a variety of roles, including Consultant and Quality Control Engineer for SQA Services (USA), Senior Site Engineer, Electro-mechanical Consultant for Norconsult (Norway) working on Telecom projects, and Assistant at Liege University, Belgium.

Bruce Badger is the President of the International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration IIAR following a six year assignment in Shanghai, China, as the Managing Director of Asia Pacific Operations and Corporate Vice President for Evapco, Inc. Badger was a member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, Chairman of the Manufacturer’s Business Council and is a member ASHRAE. As chairman of an ASHRAE Standards Committee he co-authored technical standards applied in marine, air conditioning and industrial refrigeration applications.

He received his BS degree, Marine Engineers license and US Navy commission at the US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point and served 4 years as a ship’s officer followed by 12 years in the US Navy Reserve.

Andy Campbell started his career as a refrigeration mechanic in 1991 at the Dublin fruit markets and emigrated to Australia in 1997 where he worked as a senior design engineer for the Hussmann Corporation. Graduated with a diploma in mechanical engineering in 2000 from Brisbane T.A.F.E. college he returned to the northern hemisphere where he worked as a design engineer while attending London South Bank University (LSBU) and graduated with a first class honours degree in 2005.

Campbell was awarded the Institute of Refrigeration’s Ted Perry award for his research into CO₂ refrigeration in 2005. He is currently enrolled in LSBU’s PhD program researching natural refrigerant systems in supermarkets and as head of refrigeration environmental at Tesco, Campbell is leading a change to natural refrigerants within the company.

Marc Chasserot is Managing Director of shecco, a B2B Marketing Company based in Brussels. He holds two Masters Degrees, one in Marketing and another in Politics. He has studied at the London School of Economics, Sciences Po Paris, College of Europe and INSEAD.

He has worked with Natural Refrigerants since 2003, either as Marketing Manager for shecco or previously as EU Public Affairs Manager of Norsk Hydro. He is a Member of the Refrigeration Committee of ASHRAE.

Didier Coulomb is the Director of the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR), an intergovernmental organisation comprising 61 Member countries and many private and corporate members. In previous roles he worked for the French Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry where he was more specifically in charge of technology and innovation (1984-1993). He then worked at the French Research Ministry, in particular as Deputy Director for innovation and technological development (1994-2002), and as General Secretary to the CIRAD Centre for General Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development till 2004.

Didier Coulomb is a qualified engineer of the Ecole Polytechnique de Paris (1982) and the Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural, des Eaux et des Forêts (1984), and of the Institut des Stratégies Industrielles (1995).

Nicholas Cox is considered a leading authority on environmentally friendly refrigeration and air conditioning. Throughout his long career, he has presented many papers on the subject. A fellow of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management, he was awarded a graduate ship of the City and Guilds of London Institute for his work on how industry could better utilise natural refrigerants and energy efficiency. He has advised both the UK Government and the EU Commission on environmental aspects of refrigeration and air conditioning, and he has carried out reviews and submitted written responses to proposed and pending policy documents and legislation regarding refrigerant issues.

Clive was elected as the MP for the Eltham constituency in 1997. From 2001 until October 2008 he was a member of the influential parliamentary Transport Select Committee.

In October 2008 Clive became the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the housing minister Margaret Beckett MP.

Steve Gorman has been the World Bank's GEF Executive Coordinator since 2004. In this capacity he is responsible for coordinating the Bank’s programming involving the GEF and for facilitating the expansion and strengthening of global partnerships, including those under the GEF and other global environmental financing mechanisms, and with NGOs, donors and multilateral financing institutions. He also serves as the team leader of the Montreal Protocol Operations Team since October 1998 through which he provides strategic advice on the development and implementation of activities that enable developing countries to phase out the use, as well as the production, of ozone depleting substances. Gorman also represents the Bank at international meetings on global environmental issues on a regular basis.

Thomas Grammig advises on CDM project and methodology development. He designed a Public-Private Partnership of Bosch/Siemens and GTZ-Proklima that produced the CDM methodology for replacement of households refrigerators, AMS III.X. Currently, he is working on Programme of Activities (PoA) CDM for this methodology. He received a MSc in Chemical Engineering and and PhD in Anthropology. He has published on aid project management and technology transfer. All his consulting work since 1985 has been on energy, mostly for USAID, World Bank and GTZ. Grammig started to design Kyoto Protocol courses in 1996, when directing the LEAD-Europe Foundation.

Torben M Hansen has worked with refrigeration during his entire professional career. Among the merits is an ASHRAE research project as well as more than 30 published international papers on refrigeration and former CDIG board membership. He is the Director and Cofounder of ADVANSOR A/S, a specialised manufacturer of CO₂ refrigeration and heat pump technology. The foundation of Advansor and the commitment to CO₂ is now taking up most of his time.

Volkmar Hasse has been directing the Proklima program since 2003. For 27 years he has implemented various GTZ programs, living in five developing countries. He holds a PhD in Applied Biology.

Proklima is a GTZ program commissioned by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. It currently assists about 30 countries in complying with their obligations under the Montreal Protocol. 9 projects of the International Climate Initiative of the German Ministry of the Environment were added in 2008 and are currently under implementation. Since its inception in 1996, Proklima has developed and promoted concepts and technologies addressing equally important environmental, health and social issues.

Bernd Heinbokel has been Manager in Project Engineering for energy efficiency and natural refrigerants since 2008. His responsibilities include technical assistance lead to sales departments to promote advantages of energy efficient refrigerating systems, including heat recovery and the use of natural refrigerants. Bernd began his career in 1995 at Carrier Kältetechnik GmbH as an Engineer specialized on liquid chillers. He was then promoted as a Manager on a project based on CO₂ as refrigerant for MT and LT in supermarkets. His development work resulted in the innovative pilot store COOP Wettingen in Switzerland for which Carrier Kältetechnik obtained in 2005 the highly-coveted RAC cooling industry award, category "Environmental Pioneer Refrigeration". In 2007, Bernd took the head of Product Management Refrigerating Systems.

Bernd holds a Chemical Engineering degree from the Technical University of Karlsruhe.

As a Political and Media Consultant Brent Hoare is providing lobbying, media and stakeholder liaison services to Australia’s natural refrigerants industry association. His involvement includes the attendance at the 2007 Bali climate conference, and the 2008 Montreal Protocol Open Ended Working Group in Bangkok. Hoare is the Executive Director of the Green Cooling Association promoting genuinely climate friendly refrigerant solutions, including CO₂, ammonia, and hydrocarbons.

Homsy joined Nestlé 21 years ago in France and worked in China for three and a half years. In 2000 he was Project Manager for Nestlé’s first CO₂/NH₃ cascade system (2’400 kW at -50°C) in a London coffee freezer drying factory. He is now based in the international head office of Nestlé in Vevey – Switzerland. Paul is a Diploma Engineer in Food Industry Sciences from ENSAIA (École Nationale Supérieure d'Agronomie et des Industries Alimentaires), a "Grande Ecole" (Graduate Engineering School) in Nancy - France.

Hirotaka Ito graduated from the Department of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering of the School of Science and Engineering at Waseda University. In 1987 he joined Nihon Itomic, where he was appointed Director in 1990, Executive Director in 1996, and Senior Executive Director in 2001. In 2008, he was awarded a Certificate of Gratitude from the Heat Pump & Thermal Storage Technology Center of Japan for his contribution to promote heat pump technology. Ito has been actively involved in the successful commercialisation of CO₂ Eco-Cute heat pump water heaters in Japan.

David is a consultant to Greenpeace International on their F-gas campaign, having worked on and off for Greenpeace over the past three years. Born and raised in Brussels, he completed a BSc in Chemistry and Law at the University of Bristol in the summer of 2009. His dissertation focussed on how to reform the system of international regulation of fluorinated greenhouse gases, particularly hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). He will begin his PhD at Princeton University in February 2010 continuing his focus on how to apply mechanisms that have been key to the success of the Montreal Protocol to the problems of climate change.

Kuniaki Kawamura has a Bachelor in Applied Physics from Waseda University, Japan, and has been working for Mayekawa Mfg.Co.,Ltd since 1973. In 2002, he became the Executive Director of the Japanese company.

Kawamura is a Fellow of JSRAE, a Board Member of IIAR and served as the Vice President of  the Japanese Society of Refrigerating and  Air Conditioning Engineers (JSRAE). His main areas of interest include the development of NH₃ refrigeration systems with misible oil, as well as the development of CO₂ heat pumps and air cycle for low temperature applications.   

After receiving his PhD thesis for work on nuclear fusion at the Technical University Eindhoven, Lambert Kuijpers started work in the 1980s at Philips Research Labs Eindhoven, NL. He steered a research group dealing with heat transfer and thermodynamics, specifically in the area of refrigeration. Since 1988-89, Kuijpers has been particularly involved in the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel (TEAP) and the Refrigeration Technical Options Committee under the Montreal Protocol, which he both co-chairs. After having left Philips (in 1993) the work for UNEP has been the main emphasis (co-chairmanships of Panel, Committee and Task Forces).

Christian Meineke is Head of the Division IG II 1 - Fundamental aspects of Chemical Safety, Chemicals legislation - of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conversation and Nuclear Safety in Bonn. The division is dealing with chemicals regulations, e.g. REACH, and the Protection of the Ozone Layer and the fluorinated greenhouse gases.

Christian Meineke obtained a Doctor of Laws at the University of Kiel and joined the Federal Environment Ministry in 1988. In the Ministry he worked on radiation protection, noise protection and chemicals safety.

Alexander Cohr Pachai started in the refrigeration industry in 1978 and has been working with hydrocarbons since 1995 and CO₂ since 1997. He worked with both R&D, production, sales and installation of systems using these natural refrigerants. Pachai has sold and commissioned the first HC/CO₂ system in Auckland for a supermarket as well as the largest HC/CO₂ supermarket system in the UK. As pioneer in the field of natural refrigerants he has also sold, build and commissioned the first larger supermarket system using CO₂ in Denmark and the first large scale HC AC system for computer cooling.

Currently he is heavily involved with the phase-out of R22 especially in Europe, where no more virgin R22 can be used after 2009. Pachai has carried out a lot of training for technicians and engineers in using the above mentioned natural refrigerants in modern refrigeration plants.

Christianna Papazahariou heads the Government Affairs department of shecco in Brussels. She graduated from La Sorbonne University in Paris, France where she studied law. She is a qualified lawyer and has been dealing with European and international lobbying for the past six years.

In past positions she has worked as an adviser for European retailers on environmental policy before managing the European Cold Storage and Logistics Association. Christianna is also an accredited expert on environmental policy with the European Economic and Social Committee and is member of the Greek Chamber of Commerce

Andy Pearson graduated from Strathclyde University with bachelors degrees in Engineering and Manufacturing Science in 1986, and returned there to complete a PhD thesis on the use of carbon dioxide as a refrigerant in 2005.

Dr Pearson is the President-Elect of the Institute of Refrigeration (IoR) and is chairman of IoR’s Technical Committee. He served a six-year term as a Director of the International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration (IIAR) and recently edited the guide book “Ammonia as a refrigerant” on behalf of the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR). He currently serves as a member of the refrigeration safety committees of the British Standards Institute, the European Standards Commission and the International Standards Organisation. He is a lead author for the United Nations Environment Program’s Refrigerant Technical Options Committee.

Giacomo Pisano obtained his Masters degree in mechanical engineering in 2002 and started working the same year for General Electric as a Project Manager. The company’s core business is gas turbine design, manufacturing and installation.

Since 2003, Pisano has been working for Dorin. He started in the R&D department focusing on the CO₂ compressors development and qualification protocols. Then he became CO₂ compressor Product Manager and is now also working as Technical Sales Manager.

Marc Schreurs has been a Teacher in thermodynamics and physics at the KHLim (Limburg Catholic University College) since 1989. In 2003, he has started with the research group www.irefrigeration.eu. This group has a history in the making of e-learning modules for refrigeration. Currently the group is working on a transcritical CO₂ supermarket system with heat recovery, adsorption cooling and absorption cooling with solar energy as well as heat pumps working with CO₂. Schreurs is project leader for the EU-funded project NARECO₂ enhancing R744 knowledge transfer across Europe.

Rajendra Shende is a Chemical Engineer graduate from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology. He then gained extensive and varied corporate business experience that included mainstreaming of cleaner production, environmental impact assessment, energy efficiency, and renewable energy in the manufacturing processes. After a stint at corporate management level, he joined the international programme at UNEP Division of Technology, Industry and Economy in Paris in 1992. He is a policy advisor to the developing countries and countries with economies in transition in implementing the Montreal Protocol. Expert on international technology transfer and technology cooperation to deploy the environment friendly technologies, he built the OzonAction Programme.

Dr.-Ing. Jürgen Süss is today Vice President of Research and Development of the Automatic Controls Business Unit of the Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Division (RA) of Danfoss A/S in Denmark . He is responsible for the future portfolio of controls and line components of Danfoss. Before that, he held various positions within the company and was among those heading the technological development of the RA Division. In addition, he lead the Advanced Engineering department of RA.

Dr. Süss holds a Ph.D. in refrigeration and compressor technologies and joined Danfoss in September 1998 from the “Institut für Kältetechnik” at the University of Hannover. He is active in Commissions of the IIR and ASHRAE, as well as in various scientific committees and international refrigeration associations.

Rene van Gerwen joined Unilever in 2000 where he is responsible for all R & HVAC activities in Unilever, being one of the largest end-users of refrigeration in the world. A major part of his work is related to large industrial refrigeration plants for the production of ice cream, margarines and other chilled/frozen foods, mainly using ammonia as refrigerant, and to plug-in display freezer cabinets for the sales of ice cream. For these cabinets, he developed a global programme for using hydrocarbons as refrigerant.

Before joining Unilever, Rene was heading the Department of Refrigeration & Heat Pump Technology in the R&D & Testing Company TNO, where he was working on energy saving, safety, alternative refrigerants & technologies since 1987. Rene has an MSc degree in Mechanical Engineering (Refrigeration & Climate Control) at Delft University of Technology, Netherlands.

Thomas Verheye is an official of the European Commission where he is Deputy Head of Unit of the Unit C.4 in DG Environment dealing with "Industrial Emissions and Protection of the Ozone Layer". His main responsibilities relates to the Regulation on ozone depleting substances (implementing the Montreal Protocol) and the Regulation on certain fluorinated gases (implementing the Kyoto Protocol). Prior to this post Verheye held positions in the Climate Change unit and the Economic Analysis unit.

Before joining the European Commission he worked for Ernst and Young as a Senior Auditor, the International Monetary Fund as a member of the Treasurer's Department, and the Bank of New York as Vice President responsible for Product Development. Verheye holds a degree in Business Economic and a Masters in Accounting and Finance from the University of Gent.

Fionnuala is a campaigner for EIA’s Global Environmental Campaign. She is a leading authority on the inter-linkages between ozone and climate policies. She has written several reports, press articles and papers on the climate change impacts of HFCs. She is a strong advocate for environmentally friendly natural refrigeration and air-conditioning solutions. She studied at University College London where she graduated with a B.Sc (hons) and has a Masters of Research from Roehampton University, London.
 
The UN endorsed Environmental Investigation Agency is one of a handful of NGOs working on linkages between ozone and climate and has been calling for a global HFC phase out since 2007. It recently received a US Environmental Protection Agency ‘ Best of the Best’ award, which distinguishes the highest calibre recipients from over 500 individual organisations and teams who have earned annual Stratospheric Ozone Protection awards between 1990 and 2007.

Keilly Witman works to protect the earth’s ozone layer in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Stratospheric Protection Division. She runs EPA’s GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration Partnership, which is a cooperative alliance with the supermarket industry to reduce its impact on the ozone layer and climate change.  Prior to joining the EPA, Keilly attended Vermont Law School, where she received a Juris Doctor Degree (cum laude) and a Master’s Degree in Studies of Environmental Law (magna cum laude) in 2006. Her previous career of over 10 years was in global marketing strategy for major consumer products companies.

Monika Witt was elected to the chair of the eurammon executive board in 2006. She is Managing Director of the Th. Witt Kältemaschinenfabrik GmbH in Aachen. Witt studied mechanical engineering at the RWTH Aachen and finished with a diploma in the field of process engineering. In 1991, she started as a project engineer for air separation plants at Messer Griesheim GmbH in Krefeld and moved in 1993 to MG Industries USA. In 1996, Witt joined the family business Th. Witt Kältemaschinenfabrik where she took over the managing position in 1998.

eurammon, the European initiative for natural refrigerants, is a joint initiative by companies, institutions and individuals committed to increasing the use of natural refrigerants. It sees itself as a centre of competence for the use of natural working fluids in refrigeration.

Frank Wolf finished his studies of engineering at the Technical University of Munich in 1991. The following 10 years he spent working for air conditioning departments of major automotive system suppliers in Europe, Japan and the United States before joining OBRIST Engineering, Austria in 2002.

As CEO of OBRIST Engineering GmbH and OBRIST Technologies Inc. he is responsible for marketing, sales and purchasing. In the field of R744 the company has invented, licensed and developed several compressor technologies, components and systems.

Marek Zgliczynski has been a Manager of Commercial Refrigeration Product Engineering since 1994 in Embraco Europe Srl. His responsibilities include developement of Household and Light Commercial Refrigeration Products and related Processes, technical assistance to Sales to promote advantages of Embraco products, cooperate with customers in energy efficient and reliable refrigerating systems design.

Marek graduated in Mechanical Engineering after following courses in Warsaw Politechnic in Poland and in Turin Politechnic in Italy.