Dr Janusz Kozakiewicz, Associate Professor and Expert in the Field of Polymers, Has Passed Away.

News

It is with profound sorrow that we announce that yesterday, 9 January 2025, Dr Janusz Kozakiewicz, Associate Professor and expert in the field of polymers, passed away.

Professor Kozakiewicz lectured in chemistry at Garyounis University in Benghazi, Libya, and conducted research as a Visiting Research Professor at NDSU University in Fargo, USA. He was the co-author of more than 130 articles in renowned journals and over 30 patents.

From 1993, he headed the Ozone Layer and Climate Protection Office at the Industrial Chemistry Institute in Warsaw. He was actively engaged in ozone layer protection not only in Poland but also on the international stage. In recognition of this work, he received the prestigious award of the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) in 1997, and an award from the UNEP Ozone Secretariat in 2007.

He participated in meetings of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer from 1994 as an expert of the Polish delegation. He was a member of committees supporting the European Commission in the implementation of regulations on ozone-depleting substances (ODS) and fluorinated greenhouse gases. He played an active role as an expert in the development of ODS and F-gas legislation in the EU, Poland and other countries, including Croatia, Albania and Turkey.

To us at the PROZON Foundation, he was simply “the Professor” — the most important Professor, without whom neither the Polish refrigerant recovery and reclamation network (3R) nor the PROZON Foundation might ever have existed.

Through years of collaboration with the European Commission and Polish authorities on F-gas legislation, he sought solutions that were both good for the environment and acceptable to the HVACR industry. He was a man of dialogue and well-considered compromise.

Last year, he chose to leave the institute for a long-overdue and hard-earned retirement. Yet he did not turn his back on the industry, and in recent months took part with us in a series of meetings under the LEGAL HFC 4 LIFE project, in which experts from various fields and government officials worked together to develop the best solutions for Poland’s new F-gas act. In two weeks’ time, we were due to begin the next phase of the project — training for customs services and numerous government agencies.

We will dearly miss his knowledge, experience and authority.

We extend our deepest condolences to the Professor’s Wife, his family, and his many friends in Poland and around the world.

May his memory be honoured.