Thank You for Being Part of the WRD365 Community

World Refrigeration Day 2026 may have taken place on 26 June, but the work, the conversations and the stories it inspires do not end there.

This year, people and organisations around the world came together around the theme of Cool Intelligence: recognising the knowledge, skills, experience, innovation and human judgement that make refrigeration, cooling, air conditioning, heat pumps and sustainable heating work for society.

But Cool Intelligence was never intended to be a conversation for one day only.

June 26 was not the end of the campaign. It was the start of what comes next

Cool Intelligence: one day brought the world together, but the conversation continues.

Thank you

To everyone who participated in World Refrigeration Day 2026, organised an event, shared a story, created a video, started a conversation, translated a message, opened a workplace, visited a school, encouraged a colleague or helped another person understand why our sector matters:

Thank you.

World Refrigeration Day exists because people choose to take part.

Every event, post, conversation and shared story helps make a largely invisible sector more visible.

And to the organisations whose logos appear below, we offer a very special thank you.

Your support helps make World Refrigeration Day possible. But increasingly, our relationship is about much more than supporting one day of the year.

Thank you to the organisations supporting World Refrigeration Day and helping to build the growing WRD365 Community.

From World Refrigeration Day to the WRD365 Community

The organisations supporting World Refrigeration Day work within refrigeration, cooling, air conditioning, heat pumps, sustainable heating and related fields every day of the year.

So do we.

That is why we are beginning to describe this growing group of organisations as the WRD365 Community.

The idea is simple:

We work together all year round, not only on 26 June.

The WRD365 Community brings together organisations of different sizes, from different countries and across many different parts of our sector.

Some have supported World Refrigeration Day for many years. Others have joined more recently.

We appreciate them all equally.

What connects them is a shared belief that our sector deserves to be better understood, that its people and opportunities should be more visible, and that together we can create a stronger collective voice than any one organisation, profession or country can create alone.

That collective spirit has always been part of World Refrigeration Day. Previous thank-you messages have similarly emphasised the diversity of participating organisations and the importance of working together across differences of size and geography. See previous news item from 2020

The next step is to make that year-round relationship more visible, more active and more useful.

The WRD365 Community is not simply about appearing in a logo collage.

It is about organisations helping to:

share stories;

make people and careers visible;

contribute knowledge and experience;

support global campaigns;

encourage outreach;

promote skills and opportunity;

and help the sector communicate more effectively with the world beyond itself.

The ambition is not simply to tell the world that our sector matters.

It is to become better at showing how, where and why it matters.

Cool Intelligence: the story continues

During the World Refrigeration Day campaign, people around the world began sharing what Cool Intelligence meant to them.

We saw intelligence expressed through engineering and technology, but also through experience, judgement, collaboration, training, creativity and problem-solving.

We saw that intelligence in laboratories, classrooms, offices, plant rooms, workshops, supermarkets, hospitals, farms, cold chains and installations.

And we have only begun to tell those stories.

During the months ahead, we will continue meeting the people behind Cool Intelligence.

Some will be at the beginning of their careers.

Others will have decades of knowledge and experience to share.

Some will be developing new technologies.

Others will be applying existing knowledge intelligently, solving problems, training others, mentoring colleagues or passing their experience to the next generation.

These stories are part of Cool Intelligence too.

One of the people behind Cool Intelligence. Taonga Denise Bwalya’s story is coming soon.

Cool Intelligence is not defined by age, job title or location.

It can be found in a young person asking a new question.

It can be found in a technician noticing what others have missed.

It can be found in an engineer challenging an assumption.

It can be found in a teacher helping someone understand.

It can be found in an experienced professional taking time to pass knowledge on.

It can be found in people working together.

That is why the campaign will continue.

Not as a repetition of 26 June, but as an expanding collection of people, ideas, examples and experiences that help explain the intelligence behind the systems on which modern life depends.

Experience shared. Knowledge carried forward. Alan and Nathan’s story is coming soon.

Learned, applied and passed on

There is another important dimension to Cool Intelligence.

Knowledge does not appear from nowhere.

It is learned from others.

Built through experience.

Tested in practice.

Improved through questioning.

Shared across teams.

And passed from one generation to the next.

Technology will continue to change.

Digital tools will become more capable.

Artificial intelligence will support new ways of designing, analysing and operating systems.

But our sector will continue to depend on people who know how to apply knowledge in the real world.

People who understand context.

People who make judgements.

People who recognise when something does not look, sound or feel right.

People who learn from experience and help others learn too.

That is Cool Intelligence.

And those are the stories we want to continue sharing.

Working together, 365 days a year

The next phase is about strengthening that community throughout the year.

As the WRD365 Community develops, we want to create more opportunities for organisations to contribute, participate, share stories, support campaigns and help us take the story of the sector to wider audiences.

Because the task ahead is bigger than raising awareness of one annual event.

It is about making an often invisible sector visible.

It is about helping people understand the skills, careers, opportunities and essential work behind the temperatures on which modern life depends.

It is about giving more people across the sector a voice.

And it is about creating a stronger collective voice that works 365 days a year.

To every organisation shown in this year’s collage, and to every person around the world who contributed to World Refrigeration Day 2026:

Thank you for your support.

Thank you for sharing your Cool Intelligence.

Thank you for being part of our community.

The conversation continues.

The stories continue.

And our work together continues.

Welcome to the WRD365 Community.

Stay connected

World Refrigeration Day may happen on 26 June, but our stories, campaigns and community activity continue throughout the year.

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