UNEP Cool Coalition has developed a long-term, multi-ministry, multi-partner India Cooling Programme to support the implementation of the India Cooling Action Plan, the Doubling Farmers’ Income Initiative and India’s path towards a net-zero and climate-resilient economy. The programme supports urban heat adaptation and sustainable cooling through passive cooling with sustainable building materials, heat-resilient urban design with nature, sustainable cold chains for food system resilience, and accelerating the market for district cooling.
The programme collaborates with six central government ministries, five national institutions, and seven state governments reaching over 600 million people in over 20 cities. It also directly engages the private sector, academia and civil society institutions -many of them active Cool Coalition members – to accelerate action on the ground.
India has the world’s largest population at risk from extreme heat, with wide-ranging impacts on health, productivity and the economy. While air conditioning provides indoor relief, it remains unaffordable for millions—and will likely remain so for decades. Poorly designed buildings and rising urban heat islands mean that even households with AC often face stark budget choices between high electricity bills to keep cool and other household priorities like education and healthcare. Conventional air conditioning is also highly energy-intensive, worsens the climate crisis, can trigger dangerous power outages during heatwaves, and expels heat directly onto streets, exacerbating urban hotspots.
Passive cooling measures can address these challenges if implemented on a large-scale – both in buildings and at the urban-level. Buildings can remain naturally cooler for longer durations through design features like shading, cross-ventilation, cool or green roofs, insulation and thermal mass, and heat resilient glazing. At the urban level, passive cooling can reduce urban heat island effect (UHIE) and provide much needed outdoor thermal comfort for the most vulnerable through increased green and blue infrastructure, reduced hard, heat-absorbing surfaces, increased reflectivity of roofs and surfaces, shading and urban layouts that allow cool breezes to flow through the city.
The BeCool project, supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), aims to rapidly accelerate uptake of passive cooling across India’s built environment making it more sustainably and affordably cooled and more resilient to rising extreme heat. This will help greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by cooling buildings are avoided to mitigate adverse effects on the climate, power systems, health, environment, and economy.
BeCool is working to:
- Strengthen, design and implement policies at central and state level for passive cooling and thermal comfort, both indoors and outdoors
- Accelerate public and private sector funding and financing of passively cooled buildings and cities,
- Train and handhold private real estate developers and building designers for accelerated uptake of passive cooling
The project is working with central government ministries and institutions as well as with Delhi, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh.
Agriculture supports 44% of India’s population and contributes nearly 20% to its GDP. Yet only 4% of the country’s produce benefits from cold chain, leading to high levels of food loss and associated methane emissions, lower farmer incomes, and missed domestic market linkage and export opportunities. Integrated cold chain infrastructure is vital for preserving food quality, extending marketable life of fresh produce, reducing emissions, and strengthening food and nutritional security. Scaling clean, efficient cold chains is essential, but challenges remain, including limited policy access, low awareness among relevant stakeholders on clean technologies and available public support, lack of financial support, technical capacity and participatory business models.
UNEP Cool Coalition has established a National Cold-Chain Support Programme to accelerate the deployment of sustainable and integrated cold chain systems in India and support the implementation of ICAP and the achievement of the national target of Doubling Farmers Income. This objective is to mainstream efficient, renewable, climate-friendly cold-chain infrastructure and services for horticulture in rural areas. This project is being delivered in partnership with Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy (AEEE).
The demonstration project will consist of a net-zero carbon, net-zero water use, zero waste and a net energy surplus cold chain packhouse based on circular economy principles that can contribute to a more resilient local power grid.
The packhouse will be assessed alongside potential new rural livelihood initiatives such as agrivoltaics, mushroom cultivation and aquaponics and promote important agricultural innovations in a drought-threatened area, such as precision irrigation.
The project will be developed to demonstrate commercial viability and showcase a sustainable and circular model to deliver high-quality cold chain services that boost farmer incomes and strengthen livelihoods of the rural community.
The business model will be designed to be replicable and scalable under a participatory model with farmers and Farmers Producer Organizations (FPOs).
According to ICAP, space cooling demand in India could rise 14-fold by 2037-38 compared to 2017 levels. By 2050, cooling could account for 28% of total electricity demand and 44% of peak load as projected by the International Energy Agency. Demand for space cooling will be concentrated in India’s rapidly growing cities, leading to power shortages and rising urban temperatures.