By Degrees aims to promote, explore and stimulate debate around the role of cooling as critical infrastructure, ensuring societal well-being, economic stability, and public health; adapting and mitigating the impacts of extreme heat to climate change.
Latest Articles
Cool Spaces and addressing inequity in provision
24th Jun 2025
Although urbanisation is projected to continue increasing in the decades ahead, it is estimated that approximately half of the world’s stock of buildings that will exist through to the middle of the 21st Century has already been constructed.
From loss to resilience: Building Rwanda’s cold-chain for inclusive food system transformation
10th Jun 2025
PART 2 - In this two part article we consider three interdependent pillars critical to developing an effective and efficient cold chain system in Rwanda.
From loss to resilience: Building Rwanda’s cold-chain for inclusive food system transformation
5th Jun 2025
PART 1 - In this two part article we consider three interdependent pillars critical to developing an effective and efficient cold chain system in Rwanda.
Clean Cooling Offers a Path to Resilience in Rwanda and Beyond
19th May 2025
As countries across sub-Saharan Africa work to adapt to climate change, Rwanda is focusing on one of the lesser-known but critical challenges: access to resilient, efficient, affordable, inclusive and climate-friendly sustainable cooling and cold-chain.
The role of ACES in delivering Agriculture Transformation
11th May 2025
The Clean Cooling Network (CCN) is a global initiative “born in Rwanda” with a mission to make sustainable, resilient and equitable cooling and cold-chain a cornerstone of development.
Cold-Chain Infrastructure: A Cornerstone of Rwanda's Agricultural Transformation
7th May 2025
Rwanda's ambitious five-year strategic plan for agriculture (PSTA 5) charts a course for significant strides in agricultural GDP growth.
Urban Nature-Based Solutions – Reducing the Cooling Load
30th Apr 2025
Integrating nature-based cooling solutions into city planning and landscaping will be a key approach in mitigating the urban cooling load.
Cold chain 2050 – 25 years of substantial change ahead?
11th Mar 2025
Refrigeration systems over the last 25 years have predominantly been vapour compression based1 and this core technology has not changed from the traditional direct expansion and overfeed systems.
Extreme heat, its impact on sport, and solutions for venue design
21st Feb 2025
High temperatures limit when we can play and consume sport and increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves are changing how we design sporting venues.
Adapting Africa’s food system to rising temperatures
18th Feb 2025
A bold action agenda with targets to improve food security, increase productivity, reduce post-harvest losses and stimulate investment in agriculture research, innovation and scaling of adoption.
The gig economy – high temperatures, inequity and vulnerability
31st Jan 2025
The gig economy is a rapidly expanding sector of the labour market globally and is characterised by short-term contracts and freelance assignments.
Passive cooling - A traditional approach that needs much greater uptake
17th Jan 2025
Passive cooling refers to a set of design principles and techniques that utilise natural processes to help maintain comfortable indoor temperatures without the need for active systems.
Rwanda: A Journey of Discovery and Sustainable Progress
4th Dec 2024
Rwanda, like much of Sub-Saharan Africa, faces the dual challenges of food insecurity and climate vulnerability. Rwanda is working tirelessly to build sustainable systems.
Living in a +50°C World - The System Roadmap
3rd Dec 2024
Clean cooling and cold-chain solutions are not being implemented at the required scale on-the-ground in the Global South. What can practically be done to address them?
Community cooling for community services
3rd Dec 2024
We intend to build a first of a kind test and demonstration Community Cooling Hub (CCH) unit at the ACES campus, Kigali.
The rise of electric vehicles and implications for the cold chain
18th Nov 2024
Transport accounts for around a third of global carbon dioxide emissions, with about 3/4 of transport emissions come from road transport.
Keeping cool in the future demands new questions now
30th Oct 2024
Cooling is critical infrastructure essential for food, health, safe places to live and work, and the production and storage of data that defines our modern world.
Improving the resilience of refugee camps to rising temperatures
29th Oct 2024
Ahead of COP29 and the discussions on adaptation, IMechE Fellow Dr Tim Fox outlines solutions to the challenges of adapting refugee camps for improved resilience to extreme heat.
Caught in an unsustainable evaluation trap?
16th Oct 2024
Very few sustainable evaluation methods are designed to produce meaningful evidence of the sustainable consequences of a proposed intervention.
Self-organising virtual models to build cold-chain solutions
9th Oct 2024
Climate change introduces unprecedented uncertainty and ever-greater threats to the resilience of the global food supply chains, particularly in the global South.
Unlocking the Potential of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion in Cold-Chains
19th Sep 2024
GESI is not just a moral imperative; it is crucial for driving innovation, increasing efficiency, and building resilience in the cold-chain space.
The Cold Economy
1st Jun 2024
Lack of cooling and cold-chain access is a critical development challenge that has significant implications for people’s livelihoods, productivity, health, food, and nutritional security.
