Climate Week Special Interview: Delivering Comfort and Supporting Decarbonization Goals Together: Daikin's Vision for a Sustainable Future

Katsuyuki Sawai
Senior Executive Officer
Executive in Charge of Sustainability Promotion
Daikin Industries, Ltd.

Around the world, heat waves are becoming more frequent and intense, increasing the risks associated with extreme heat. At the same time, demand for air conditioning continues to grow due to population growth, economic development, and the rapid expansion of cooling demand from AI-driven data centers. Cooling has become an increasingly essential part of modern infrastructure.

However, as cooling demand rises, so does the challenge of managing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Balancing comfort with sustainability has become one of the defining challenges for the HVAC industry.

Q. Why has Daikin made sustainability a central part of its business strategy?

Sawai:

Air conditioning has become an essential part of modern society, supporting both people's comfort and industrial activity. In an era of increasingly frequent heat waves and extreme weather events, it can play a critical role in communities around the world. At the same time, rising living standards and urbanization, particularly in emerging economies—as well as the rapid expansion of data centers driven by digitalization, have made cooling more important than ever around the world.

In the United States, electricity prices continue to rise in many regions, making energy efficiency a growing concern for both households and businesses. At the same time, AI-driven growth in data centers is significantly increasing overall electricity demand. Making efficient use of limited power resources and managing a stable electricity supply are now essential not only for supporting sustainability, but also for energy security, infrastructure resilience, and economic competitiveness.

HVAC equipment can have a significant impact on global energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. That is why we view addressing environmental challenges not as a CSR initiative, but as a fundamental goal embedded in our core business. Fulfilling that goal while continuing to deliver comfort is Daikin's mission.

Q. What is Daikin's highest priority in sustainability management?

Sawai:

Our priority extends beyond reducing the footprint of our own operations. We focus on how much we can contribute to society's overall sustainability.

At Daikin, we do not see business growth and addressing social or sustainability challenges as competing objectives. On the contrary, growing demand for highly efficient HVAC systems and new energy solutions means that addressing these challenges is itself an opportunity for business growth. Our goal is to create both sustainability benefits and economic value simultaneously.

Q. What is the fundamental philosophy behind Daikin's sustainability strategy?

Sawai:

One of the defining characteristics of our Environmental Vision 2050 is that it does not focus solely on reducing emissions from our factories and offices.

Air conditioning systems remain in service for many years. Therefore, when evaluating environmental impact, it is essential to consider the entire lifecycle—from product development and manufacturing to operation, replacement, and beyond.

Building a decarbonized society also requires collaboration. No single company can achieve meaningful progress on its own. We must work together with customers, business partners, municipalities, and many other stakeholders to optimize energy use across entire buildings and cities.

Moreover, maximizing the impact of climate action requires more than technological innovation. It also depends on supporting the right policies, frameworks, and energy efficiency standards that encourage advanced technologies to be widely adopted.

Daikin participates in appropriate policy and industry discussions with international organizations, governments, and industry associations to help promote energy efficiency standards and regulatory frameworks that encourage the adoption of high-efficiency HVAC technologies. In recent years, we have supported the development of energy efficiency standards in Nigeria and have recently launched similar initiatives in Brazil.

Through both technological innovation and engagement in policy discussions, we aim to help accelerate the transition toward a sustainable society.

Q. What environmental technologies make Daikin unique?

Sawai:

The future requires more than simply improving the efficiency of individual pieces of equipment. We must optimize energy use across entire buildings and facilities. Doing so may not only reduce CO₂ emissions but may also help support electricity demand, energy security and resilience. Through our HVAC technologies, we aim to help build sustainable and competitive infrastructure.

One of the technologies that makes this possible is Daikin's inverter technology, which we have continuously refined over many years. Rather than operating at maximum capacity all the time, inverter systems are designed to precisely adjust output according to actual indoor conditions for energy efficiency. By pioneering inverter technology, Daikin has successfully combined comfort with outstanding energy efficiency.

Another key strength is our heat pump technology. Heat pumps capture and utilize thermal energy from the surrounding air and other natural sources, enabling highly efficient heating that are designed to deliver more thermal energy than the electrical energy consumed. Electrifying heating by replacing combustion-based systems with heat pumps is increasingly recognized worldwide as a critical pathway toward both decarbonization and energy efficiency. By combining inverter and heat pump technologies, Daikin delivers solutions that achieve both exceptional comfort and energy efficient performance.

Today, we are expanding these capabilities further through AI- and IoT-enabled energy management. By analyzing HVAC operations in real time across commercial buildings, factories, and data centers, we aim to help optimize overall energy consumption throughout entire facilities.

We are also committed to promoting R32 refrigerant, a low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerant. Because R32 is a single-component refrigerant, it is easy to recover and reclaim. We believe that reducing emissions requires not only highly efficient equipment, but also the recovery, reclamation, and reuse of refrigerants.

In addition, Daikin has opened key patents related to R32 technology to help accelerate the global transition to low-GWP refrigerants.

Q. What message would you like to share with participants of Climate Week NYC?

Sawai:

Addressing climate change and energy challenges is not something any single company can accomplish alone.

Technology companies, governments, investors, research institutions, universities, and customers all have important roles to play. Collaboration among these stakeholders can support meaningful and lasting change.

Climate Week NYC provides a unique opportunity for these diverse stakeholders to come together, build new relationships, and accelerate climate action.

Daikin looks forward to sharing our vision and initiatives while engaging in meaningful dialogue with partners around the world. Through these conversations and collaborations, we hope to further accelerate our contributions toward a more sustainable future.