Sustainable Cooling

Hey everyone,

One of our biggest climate challenges is the battle to keep our buildings cool. With temperatures rising, the use of air conditioning is surging at an alarming rate. It’s already responsible for 10% of global energy consumption, and relies on harmful refrigerants.

We need to keep buildings cool, but how can we do that in a more sustainable way? Technology offers some really “cool” solutions, and some date back further than you’d expect!

One of the most recent breakthroughs is radiative cooling materials that can reflect heat away from buildings, even if they’re in direct sunlight. Companies like SkyCool Systems have produced rooftop films that redirect heat into space, massively reducing the need for air conditioning.

On a similar path, researchers from Purdue University have created an ultra-white paint that’s able to reflect 98% of sunlight, massively reducing the heat absorbed on surfaces. It’s still early days, but if this could be scaled up around the world it would make a major impact on the need for energy-hungry air conditioning.

Another method to keep buildings cool that’s growing in popularity actually originated centuries ago! Windcatchers are an old architectural feature that naturally combat heat by directing a cool breeze into a building, forcing out the hot air. Even without a cool breeze, their designs function like a chimney, pushing warm air up and out.

Firms like Monodraught are trying to bring this approach into the modern age, with a range of clever products being sold to market that can naturally cool AND heat buildings with different ventilation settings.

So what’s next? Unlike many other sustainability areas, I don’t think that futuristic technology like advanced AI and detailed engineering are where the answers lie. Instead I think we just need a roll out of simple but effective building practices and materials that take advantage of the natural ways we can keep buildings cool.

That said, there is some great work being done exploring possibilities like self-cooling concrete and solar chimneys that drive airflow, so who knows what the future has in store!

Would you ditch air conditioning in your home in favour of cooling paint and a “heat chimney”? Feel free to reply and let me know your thoughts.

Catch you next week!

James