Air conditioning may offer relief from rising temperatures, but it’s also part of the problem—responsible for 3 percent of global emissions and growing fast in the very places hit hardest by heat. The IEA estimates projects that the number of air conditioning units in use will double from around 2.5 billion in 2025 to over 5 billion by 2050. This creates a climate paradox: air conditioning is both a response to rising global temperatures and a major contributor to the problem. It’s a feedback loop—cooling buildings in the short term while accelerating the long-term warming trend it was meant to relieve.

More than 9 in 10 households in the United States are equipped with air conditioning. In our Technical Note, Get Cool: Air Conditioning Industry Background, we examined the facets of a truly entrenched global industry dominated by century-old legacy companies such as Carrier, Trane, and Daikin. Notably, air conditioning technology is one of the most stagnant out there—seeing little innovation since its original process, which cools air by running it over refrigerant coils to remove heat and humidity.

Our case Blue Frontier: Disrupting Air Conditioning introduced a Florida-based startup tackling this century-old AC problem. Dr. Daniel Betts—a dually-skilled and deeply inventive entrepreneur with a PhD in engineering and an MBA—became captivated by the lack of progress in air conditioning technology. With a background in fuel cells, Betts set out to reimagine the system entirely. The result was a remastered rooftop unit (RTU) boasting up to 85 percent greater efficiency than market-standard models. Instead of relying on energy-intensive refrigerant-based dehumidification, Betts’s design used a non-corrosive liquid desiccant to dry and cool air while storing thermal energy for later use. The result wasn’t just technical—it delivered air that felt cleaner and drier in commercial spaces, positioning Blue Frontier as a breakout climate-tech company with real scale potential in 2025. Betts ushered in over $47 million of Series A funding from top climate VCs including 2150, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Next Era - the largest public utility company in the United States.

This multi-case project on air conditioning introduced the challenges—and emerging solutions—to decarbonize an entrenched, slow-moving industry. With early collaborations in place across major commercial partners—including the U.S. General Services Administration and Department of Defense—Blue Frontier set out to position its novel technology as the next-generation standard in commercial cooling. Its success will depend not only on technical performance, but on its ability to earn trust, shorten sales cycles, and reframe what’s possible in one of the world’s most energy-intensive sectors.