ADC3R

At the heart of refrigerants

ADC3R is an association created in 2013. Members are companies that are active in France as distributors, fillers, recoverers and reclaimers of refrigerants. 

Laurent Guégan, Public Affairs Manager & Circular Economy Manager at Climalife (Dehon Service) and representative of the presidency of the association.

ADC3R's primary goal is to commit in initiatives aimed at limiting the environment impact of the use of refrigerants, in the spirit of COP21 and the Paris agreements. It aims in particular to encourage the recovery, treatment and regeneration of refrigerants as well as to promote any action relating to the limitation of CO2 emissions linked to the activities of our members. To do this, it acts to promote good professional practices among all those in the sector. Finally, it carries out and commissions studies or consultations in the framework of the association's missions.

ADC3R and/or its members are also affiliated to other associations or unions related to the cooling and air conditioning industry, such as AFCE, AFF SNEFCCA for instance. The founding companies are individual members.

 

Link with the sector 

Laurent GUEGAN, president of the association, believes that the creation of this structure was essential. ADC3R was established because the founders, at the crossroads of many players (producers, wholesalers, contractors, facility Management, installers, end users, etc.) wanted to have an official representation of their sector.

The regulatory review have reinforced this feeling of the importance of setting up a structure to defend the future of all parts of the 1st rank distributor sector, with the particularities and problems inherent to it.

The clearly stated will of all members is to work together with all the actors of the sector. They intend to share good practices likely to improve the life cycle of GESF.

ADC3R is recognized as a stakeholder by professional associations, NGOs and public authorities (French and European) for any legislative or regulatory evolution related to the activities of distribution, filling, recovery and treatment of refrigerants. As an association, it acts directly with the public authorities and obtains answers to its questions.

 

Our actions 

Since its creation in 2013, ADC3R has been working on a daily basis with professional associations and unions in the cooling and air conditioning industry with the French and European authorities on issues related to fluorinated refrigerants. The association is involved in major issues, bringing a global vision on each of them.

Waste tracking Form:

  • Fluorinated gases are fluids found in thermodynamic cycle processes (refrigeration, heat pumps), as aerosol propellants (pharmaceuticals), extinguishing agents or expansion agents. The main fluorinated gases are HFCs, perfluorocarbons (PFCs), as well as HFOs and HCFOs (more recent components with very low GWP). Because of their high Global Warming Potential (GWP), the regulations control the emissions of some fluorinated greenhouse gases (FGGs), namely: HFCs, PFCs and SF6. Among them, HFCs represent today 90% of the production of fluorinated gases in Europe, and 78% of imports. The climatic impact of the production of these gases makes it necessary to save this resource and to deploy techniques for the recovery and reuse of waste fluorinated gases, in order to avoid the production of virgin fluid. The reprocessing of polluted GHGs is essential for all the actors of the refrigeration market. In spite of all the interest of the treatment of GHG, the regulatory evolutions evolve and become more and more constraining. One of the regulatory aspects corresponds to the waste tracking form, a mandatory regulatory document, whose objective is to guarantee the traceability of the waste tracking from the producer to its final treatment. The management of the BSD is difficult. However, the main actors of the recovery chain, the distributors, the recyclers and the reprocessors, deploy a lot of means to train the actors of the sector.
  • The management of Waste Tracking Form is a necessity for the traceability of refrigerants. As a key player in the recovery and treatment of fluids, ADC3R contributes to the evolution of documents in order to facilitate the work of operators and distributors. It is in this spirit that ADC3R has brought its expertise and comments to the Ministry of Ecological Transition as well as to the Fabrique du Numérique in charge of the development of TRACKDECHETS, a national web portal for waste tracking.

ADC3R, and in the framework of a research agreement, the Climate Economics Chair, in collaboration with CITEPA, produced an economic evaluation of the benefits of these recovery actions in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Emissions of 44.1 million tCO2from 1993 to 2013 have already been avoided thanks to the structuring by the sector's industrialists of a mechanism for the recovery and reuse of fluorinated refrigerants.

This study estimated the quantities of refrigerants in the different categories that will be recovered over the period 2015-2030 at approximately 60 MtCO2eq.

ADC3R is recognized as a stakeholder by the French and European authorities and, therefore, participates in exchanges on regulatory developments.

  • F-Gas :

ADC3R is in favor of environmental progress and advances of F-Gas II. ADC3R has fully supported the F-Gas regulation and the European Green Deal and has continuously worked to ensure its success.

ADC3R is actively working with the European Commission and their consultants in the review process.

Clear and stable regulations are necessary to reassure stakeholders and enable smart investment planning while being ambitious and with the aim of complying with the Paris agreements made at COP 21.

  • REACH :

ADC3R, as a stakeholder, answered to inquiries made by the commission's consultants in the context of a possible restriction on AFP.

As HFCs and HFOs are already monitored under F-Gas, ADC3R is not in favor of these proposals.

Its proactive role is also recognized by various international organizations.

  • ADC3R presented the good results of the French voluntary recovery agreement system at the 38th OEWG (United Nations Open-Ended Working Group of Parties to the Montreal Protocol) in Vienna in 2016.
  • ADC3R participated in the Colombian Congress organized by UNEP and the Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (MINAMBIENTE): "First International Congress for the Integral Management of Ozone Depleting Substances" in Bogotá in 2017.

Taxe HFC :

In 2018, ADC3R federated the refrigeration and HVAC industry to implement actions to accelerate the reduction of CO2 emissions from the use of HFC fluids.

In order to do this, the refrigeration and air conditioning industry, through its spokespersons (ADC3R and Uniclima), has made formal commitments to the Prime Minister after extensive consultation with the cabinets of the Élysée, Matignon and the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Solidarity, thus avoiding the application of a tax on HFCs that would have been costly and unnecessary.

This action was in the continuity of the actions already engaged, since 2011, alongside the AFCE, the SNEFCCA and the AFF, on the consequences for the market of a tax on refrigerants. To do this, the members of the association met with the Directorate General for Risk Prevention, the representative of the Carbon Commission (Mr. Christian De Pertuis) but also representatives of other countries that have already tested this process.

In the continuity of this action, the ADC3R measures annually the marketing of HFCs in France and prescribes to the actors of the sector the interests of low GWP alternative solutions which also improve the energy efficiency of the systems.