Central training sessions for public authority staff and RAC industry professionals

The training sessions organised by the PROZON Climate Protection Foundation under the LEGAL HFC 4 LIFE project are designed to increase knowledge and improve coordination among public authorities, as well as to raise awareness in the fight against illegal HFCs. To improve enforcement, it is essential to continuously generate interest in the issue so as to effectively combat HFC smuggling. The stakeholders invited to participate in the project play a particularly important role in the process of preventing illegal HFC trading.

A non-certified product with unknown parameters can cause numerous system failures and, as a result, affect not only the environment through CO₂ emissions into the atmosphere, but also the safe operation of the equipment. Industry workers, through their need to purchase refrigerants, may come into contact with individuals offering illegal HFCs — often without being aware that the refrigerant they have purchased originates from an illegal source. It is therefore crucial that the entire RAC industry is aware that using HFCs from illegal sources can have negative consequences both for the environment and for the operation of equipment.

It is also essential to know how to identify such a refrigerant and where to report any suspicion of an illegal product. It is therefore extremely important that the stakeholder groups mentioned above cooperate with one another on the issue of illegal HFC trading. The training series that PROZON is preparing as part of the project will focus not only on legislation and the practical skills of sampling and refrigerant identification, but above all on improving the cooperation and coordination of the groups mentioned above.

The training sessions are being prepared on the basis of Regulation 2024/573 and the amended Polish F-gas Act.

The training programme will be divided into a separate programme for public authorities and for the RAC industry. Keeping public service personnel and RAC industry professionals in separate training groups is of significant importance from the perspective of public service operational methods. In addition, the RAC industry training will also place emphasis on skills such as identifying illegal HFCs appearing on the market, distinguishing legal from illegal offers, and recognising the appearance of single-use containers.