Last week, the Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) and the Residential Energy Service Network (RESNET) announced they’d teamed up to promote home-performance contracting, a growing specialty where the contractor takes the entire structure – not just the HVAC system – into account when identifying and fixing comfort and energy-efficiency issues. Since the HVAC system is the main energy consumer in most homes, home-performance contractors have had success marketing their services to homeowners looking to make conscientious decisions about energy efficiency.
To help solidify the partnership, ACCA and RESNET signed a memorandum of understanding saying they agree to work together. But, they are not the only organizations to partner up lately to achieve a common goal.
About a month ago, the Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Institute of Canada (HRAI) and the Canadian Institute of Plumbing & Heating (CIPH) also agreed to a memorandum of understanding to establish “a framework for cooperation in the continued development of the plumbing and heating industries through communication and cooperation.”
Similarly, the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), the Indoor Air Quality Association (IAQA), and AIHA Registry Programs LLC entered an agreement this spring to help establish a body of knowledge for IAQ as well as a registry of qualified IAQ practitioners.
As Charles Darwin said, “In the long history of humankind – and animal kind, too – those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” Seeing these organizations working together to achieve something and advance the HVAC industry is heartening, and I hope it is a trend that will continue.
