1st IIR Conference on Sustainability

ACR Today May 2010

The UK has hosted the first International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR) conference on the cold chain, to examine and discuss the latest developments and key trends in food, pharmaceutical and other cold chain applications.

Nearly 200 delegates speakers from 22 countries met in Cambridge at the end of March, to participate in a series of technical papers, workshops and site visits, to share their knowledge and experiences in developing and maintaining cold chain technology. Cambridge University’s Selwyn College saw international representatives from Australia, Iceland, China and the Ukraine present a diverse range of papers from across the range, from food safety to transcritical CO² systems.

Opening the event, Robert Heap, MBE, Conference Chairman and Hon. President, IIR Science & Technology Council defined sustainability as “the ability to keep going continuously”. However, he went on to explain that sustainability will always depend on the application. “We must consider the somewhat difficult concept of sustainable growth – by definition impossible in the long term, but possible within certain limits. Sustainable growth has been defined as doing what we do today in a way which ensures that future generations are able to do what they need to do tomorrow or more briefly, not cheating our grandchildren”

This therefore set the scene for a number of presentations across two full days.