Montreal Protocol

Demand for A-Gas' products is driven by changes in the regulatory environment. Indeed, A-Gas' historic growth has come from successfully pre-empting regulatory developments, making strategic investments and developing the product range ahead of regulation.

The regulatory developments noted above refers to the International Treaty known as the Montreal Protocol, which controls and will ultimately phase out the production and use of ozone depleting substances (“ODS”) and specifically the chlorine containing CFC and HCFC based products.The Montreal Protocol is focussed on the phase out of these products globally and is two tiered in nature, in so far as it has separate phase out schedules for DCs and Less Developed Countries (“LDC”).In turn each signatory country must have in place an appropriate legislative and regulatory framework. Furthermore, the replacement products for these ODS are HFC and whilst ozone benign, these products are considered to have Global Warming Potential (“GWP”) and as such are included in the “basket” of six gases (the major one being CO 2 ) which are encompassed in the Kyoto Protocol. However, AU and USA are not signatories to this protocol.

United Nations Environment Programme - Ozone Secretariat