The phasedown of HFCs mandated in Europe by the F-gas regulation will require a fundamental change in culture for the cooling industry. It is the biggest change in a generation for sure, but perhaps the biggest change the industry has ever seen.

Readers who don't supply the European market may be reassuring themselves that this is only a problem for Europe, but it is essential to realize that the direction of travel in North America now is inexorably headed toward an HFC phasedown.

Think I am exaggerating? Consider the evidence of what's ahead in the next few years for Europe.

Firstly, the phasedown will usher in a range of new refrigerants. This requires different ways of working for many who have grown up with R22, whether it be accommodating the higher pressures of carbon dioxide or dealing with flammability — "mild" for HFO blends, R32 and the like, or "high" for hydrocarbons.

Secondly, it will mean everyone in Europe becoming a lot more familiar with the concept of global-warming potential (GWP). The F-gas regulation is driven by a series of GWP-related bans, designed to move the industry away from the "worst" refrigerants, in global-warming terms.

Thus, we are faced with the prospect of every engineer having to calculate the GWP value of the refrigerant charge, rather than just the volume. Thankfully, the advance of cellphone technology means that there will be "an app for that" available to do the necessary conversion, saving many a scratched head.

Thirdly, as legislators have sought to force the industry away from those high-GWP refrigerants, they have lowered many of the limits that apply to requirements such as leak detection. For European refrigeration contractors, it likely means having to tell a whole new group of customers namely independent retailers using smaller condensing units that they come within scope of tighter inspection and detection regimes.

The regulations have also added in a requirement to include information about all forms of new lower-GWP cooling in engineer training programs. So, theoretically, even if one's customer base does not envisage using natural refrigerants preferring to go down the HFO route, say it is likely that the engineering base will need to be trained on it.

Think that's a lot to get your head around? Those are only the long-term issues. As refrigeration industry leaders recently emphasized in no uncertain terms, the European industry will need to get to grips with a whole bunch of more immediate issues, too.

One of the key issues is to be prepared for price rises and potentially availability problems. The higher-GWP refrigerants, such as R404A and R422A, will become less specified, and supply and demand drives prices. On top of this, the volume of HFC production is required by the legislation to drop significantly in 2018, giving rise to further supply-and-demand pressure.

End-users in Europe, such as supermarkets, are starting or stepping up use of "transitional refrigerants." In preparation for the forthcoming bans notably the ban on servicing large systems with refrigerants above 2,500 GWP beginning in 2020 they are converting their existing estates away from R404A and R422D as soon as possible.

These end-users are moving toward the lower-GWP "transitional" refrigerants R407A and R407F. Although the ban does not take effect till 2020, the experts believe that planning has to take place much sooner, not least because of that drop in production.

"You have got to tell customers not to look at new R404A equipment," said Ray Gluckman of consultant Jacobs, warning that it is wiser to move sooner rather than later away from the high-GWP refrigerants. "Check if you are affected by the service ban and make plans for early actions. I am very worried that in 2018 the shape of the phasedown will create real supply issues for R404A, etc., so I would urge that service ban actions are actually taken by 2018, not 2020."

Anyone who supplies equipment into the European market would also do well to take careful account of the forthcoming bans on new equipment. Stationary refrigeration equipment will be banned from using HFCs with a GWP above 2,500 after 2020. More significantly perhaps, after 2022 that GWP limit drops dramatically to 150 for both hermetically-sealed commercial fridges and for multipack refrigeration systems (although exceptions apply to the primary refrigerant of cascade systems).

The North American submission for a phasedown to the Montreal Protocol starts later and lasts longer than Europe. It is proposed to run from 2018 to 2035 for developed countries, and it envisages a pretty significant reduction in the short term 35 percent of current HFC volume by 2023.

That is only eight short years away! Therefore, surely firms on this side of the Atlantic would do well to start thinking about what a "lower-GWP strategy" might mean for their operations. As refrigerant specialist John Ormerod of A-Gas warns: "Business as usual is not an option."