India’s Sustainable Cooling Frontier 

With rising temperatures and growing cities, sustainable cooling solutions for new buildings will continue to expand exponentially. 

The sustainable cooling market will continue to grow in hot regions of the world, such as around the Mediterranean and into the Arabian Peninsula, as well as in humid India, but it will be largely for new developments, and it will not be for the masses. Sustainable cooling remains in the starting blocks and is not accessible today to the majority of 1.45 billion Indians. 

Germany is a leading European country promoting sustainable cooling solutions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) through its ambitious Cool Up programme. This initiative focuses on transforming the cooling market by phasing out hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants, aligning with the EU’s broader efforts to reduce F-gas emissions and extend these practices to the MENA region. 

Germany is a signatory of the 2023 Global Cooling Pledge, which aims to enhance international cooperation through collective global targets to reduce cooling related emissions by 68% by 2050, significantly increase access to sustainable cooling by 2030, and increase the global average efficiency of new air conditioners by 50%. 

The F-gasses come into the last point: removing HFCs from new air conditioners can reduce emissions while improving efficiency through more advanced technologies. Air conditioning units cool indoor spaces but release heat into the surrounding air, creating a ‘heating’ effect on the streets while increasing ‘cooling’ indoors. 

HFCs are also used in refrigerators and heat pumps that are pitched as the most energy efficient technology out there for heating and cooling. HFCs are “potent greenhouse gases which are between hundreds and thousands of times more effective at warming the atmosphere than CO2.” Hence Germany’s insistence to phase-out HFCs asap.   

Enter district cooling  

District cooling is for hot regions, and district heating is for cold regions: a centralised system that cools multiple buildings with chilled water. Rather than having many AC units tacked to building facades, district cooling can provide campuses, airports, data centres, hotels, municipal buildings with circular economy solutions for increasing energy efficiency while reducing waste.  

Reducing energy waste and water loss while repurposing from sources like sewage and solid waste helps close the loop, enabling the energy-water-waste nexus to emerge.

Such circular economy solutions are the future happening now. A blue ocean is opening for the district cooling market emerging across India, especially with new building developments.  

Tabreed is a first mover in India, leading the expansion of district cooling and driving market creation across the subcontinent. There is an ambitious and passionate band of men and women from Tabreed India and the German Development Agency (GIZ) who are spearheading the narrative for sustainable cooling to gain resonance and spread across India.  

At the ‘Cooling India’s Cities’ regional workshop in Mumbai on 4 March 2025, Sudheer Perla, Managing Director of Tabreed Asia, said that

by 2050 around 45% of India’s peak power demand will come from space cooling in buildings, compared to 10% in 2024.

This astronomical increase reflects the +40% urbanisation rate coming to India, now the most populous country in the world.  

India is also the first country in the world to develop a comprehensive 20-year outlook for the India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) launched in March 2019. The Cool Coalition led by the UN Environment Programme includes India, where “cities are particularly at risk due to extreme heat, as rising temperatures are exacerbated by urban heat island effects and unequal access to cooling.”  

General access to cooling and social equity will remain major challenges, alongside the absence of district cooling in existing legislation and regulations. Greater awareness campaigns are also needed to communicate and promote available solutions. However, sustainable cooling is on the rise, driven by societal necessity and the growing demand to ‘beat the heat’ in India.