The Natural Refrigeration

IIAR began a closer examination of the federal General Duty clause, Process Safety Management and Risk Management programs for ammonia refrigeration systems, built a new website section to highlight member resources, automated its peer review process for technical papers, and expanded events in Latin America in 2025.

In addition, IIAR also completed updates to four major publications: The Piping Handbook; IIAR 5-2025; IIAR 6-2025; and IIAR 7-2025. These IIAR accomplishments will strengthen membership and educational offerings, and further its mission and advocacy for expanding the safe use of natural refrigerants in all countries.

“I’m always impressed by the amount of work IIAR committees and staff are able to churn out,” said IIAR president Gary Schrift, adding that one of 2025’s most significant projects – the new IIAR resources center website – was created to showcase all that work in one place.

IIAR RESOURCES CENTER
“It’s incredible how many resources we’ve developed over the years. Whether they’re technical (our codes and standards effort), educational, or oriented around communicating the value of natural refrigerants, they form the bedrock of what we do as an organization.” Schrift said.

“The new resource center site is a central place for everyone to quickly access what they need, whether it’s a deep dive into a particular technical issue or information that gives someone a primer on our industry.”

The new site consolidates IIAR’s magazine and all its resources in one place, marking a significant shift for the organization, which has traditionally lacked a central communications hub.

“Our goal is simple: to ensure that every member, partner, and stakeholder throughout the world can easily find and use the tools that support their work. Many of our most valuable resources—hosted on IIAR and NRF pages—have historically been difficult to locate,” said Schrift. “We’re changing that. The redesigned resource site will serve as a centralized hub, linking directly to existing and a large amount of new content developed in 2025.”

The new site includes:
• Informational Papers:: including the State of the Industry reports, refrigerant fact sheets, and a new PFAS Refrigerants whitepaper – along with future informational sheets and papers as they’re produced.

• Informational Videos: featuring foundational content about IIAR, natural refrigerants, and the NRF, plus new promotional videos focused on CO₂, decarbonization, hydrocarbons, and ammonia.

• Natural Refrigeration Career Center: offering a public-facing job board listing internship and entry-level job openings of our members to connect talent with opportunity across our growing sector.

• Natural Refrigeration Directory: offering a public-facing and searchable listing of manufacturers, contractors, engineers, consultants, and end users who are experts in the use of natural refrigerants.

• Natural Refrigeration Training Programs: offering a public-facing, detailed, and searchable listing of training programs available for natural refrigeration.

• Refrigerant Evaluator Tool: offering a public-facing online tool that will assess and compare all refrigerants, synthetic and natural, by providing information on the refrigerants; chemical make-up, GWP, ODP, safety class, flammability, toxicity, thermodynamic properties, relative efficiency; USA EPA SNAP approval.

• Ammonia Refrigeration Global Standards & Regulations: offering a one-stop location to learn which standards and regulations apply for countries throughout the world.

• Magazine Access: with a direct link to our newly rebranded publication, the Natural Refrigeration Review—formerly Condenser Magazine.

PSM RMP GAP ANALYSIS
Meanwhile, IIAR’s newly formed “NORM” (Nh3 Overdue Regulation Modernization) task force started work last year to create a gap analysis matrix comparing the nine IIAR ammonia standards and their requirements to the requirements of OSHA Process Safety Management and EPA Risk Management programs.

The gap analysis will eventually be a tool IIAR members can use to visualize the areas where IIAR standards are more stringent than the federal government, and conversely, where the federal government requires more than IIAR standards.

“This gap analysis will reveal the areas where the US federal government is asking for more than our standard, and vice versa,” said Schrift. “The potential end goal is to create a simplified road map showing that if the IIAR standards are followed and you fulfill these few PSM/RPM requirements, you will have an extremely safe and regulation compliant ammonia refrigeration system in the USA. Currently one has to attempt to read and comply with the IIAR standards, the OSHA PSM and General Duty clause regulations, and the EPA RMP and General Duty clause regulations pertaining to ammonia refrigeration systems with many overlapping or duplicate requirements and some, in my belief, unnecessary and no-value requirements of the federal government regulations . . . That by the way do not apply to ammonia use in agriculture, a much larger use of ammonia in the USA and the world.”

ORGANIZATIONAL IMPROVEMENTS
IIAR made several process updates to its organizational functions in 2025. First among them was an update of IIAR’s conference technical and white paper submissions from a manual process to an interactive interface. Using Open Water, a new software add-on to their association management software, technical and whitepaper evaluators can download their papers, provide their edits and recommendations, and upload their reviewed paper to the IIAR Open Water portal.

From here the authors can easily access all reviewer edits, make their final changes, and upload their finished paper via the same portal, saving hundreds of emails between staff, authors, and peer reviewers, and providing a single point of collection for all IIAR papers. Open Water will also be used by the Natural Refrigeration Foundation to accept and evaluate scholarship submissions.

Also in 2025, IIAR made its full suite of standards free to all members by making use of IIAR’s association event and application software, Mosaic, and its expanded capability to allow document access. The standards were previously available through a different provider for a fee.

“Using a new function of our already paid for software results in a significant cost savings for IIAR,” said Schrift. “And by using this software that is already integrated into IIAR association management software and its member database, we can provide instant access to standards for newly joined members.”

EXPANDED EVENTS IN LATIN AMERICA
In the second half of the year, IIAR made significant headway in its global standards advocacy effort, closing out 2025 with record attendance at events in the southern hemisphere.

IIAR’s Chile Chapter, along with The Chilean Chamber of Refrigeration and Air Conditioning, said the organizations’ twenty eighth Seminar on Natural Refrigeration for Latin America drew over 350 attendees, the largest number of attendees in the event’s history.

“This was the largest IIAR event yet in Chile,” said Yesenia Rector, Vice President of Education, Outreach, and Events, adding that IIAR’s Latin American chapters typically host at least one event biannually.

Despite regional differences, IIAR’s Latin America seminars are global in nature, giving the industry in the hosting country the opportunity not only to network but to share viewpoints, challenges, and opportunities that are happening inside that country and around the world.

At the recent meeting in Chile, attendees from Germany, Italy, Argentina, the U.S., and Spain represented just a few of the countries in attendance. “These seminars are happening at a regional level, but they are really international in nature,” said Rector. “They are a way to showcase the region to the world.”