Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) completed the rollout of version 3 of its Energy Star for New Homes program, and more HVAC contractors became involved in this process to certify efficient homes.

About a month before the AHR Expo, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicated it would permit the industry to produce and import 39 million pounds of virgin HCFC-22 in 2013, down from 55 million pounds in 2012.

Ongoing discussions are currently underway, examining ways to incorporate HFCs into the protocol in order to phase down their use due to relatively high global warming potential (GWP).