Sustainable cooling approaches for a warming world: a literature review

Abstract

As the urgency to combat climate change intensifies, sustainable cooling strategies are essential to manage high temperatures. This paper presents a literature review of sustainable cooling approaches that reduce temperatures in extreme conditions. It analyses 64 peer-reviewed publications using a four-tiered cooling pyramid framework proposed by the authors. The framework categorises cooling approaches into urban cooling, passive buildings, appliances without refrigeration, and air-conditioning with refrigeration. The findings show that "urban cooling" strategies as the most promising approach, with temperature reduction over 10°C, while passive buildings and non-refrigerant appliances achieve reductions of 5ºC and 7ºC respectively. When combined, these strategies offer a potential reduction of 20ºC before deploying refrigerant based cooling. By synthesising these cooling potential of each strategy and highlighting the gaps, the review provides an overview of sustainable cooling in urban environments makes the case for a layered and integrated approach. This work serves as a vital resource for funders, policymakers, and researchers seeking to develop and implement climate-resilient cooling solutions in the built environment.