Institutionalizing Life Cycle Refrigerant Management by Development of the Legal Framework in Viet Nam

Abstract

　In most developing countries, fluorinated refrigerants are vented into the atmosphere at the time of servicing and disposal of cooling equipment as a business-as-usual (BAU) practice. Viet Nam has become one of the first developing countries to introduce a comprehensive legal framework for life-cycle refrigerant management (LRM) under its Revised Law on Environmental Protection of 2020 and other relevant documents. The set of the rules relevant to LRM have deliberately been integrated into the hierarchical structure of Viet Nam’s legal instruments, namely, decrees, circulars and national mandatory technical regulations (QCVN), which provides an essential foundation to operationalize LRM, bringing norms into regulations at the high level, and standards and procedures at the practical level.