THE environment was one of the main winners at last night's glittering ACR News Awards presentation evening at the ICC in Birmingham.
Chris Barrie, star of Red Dwarf and the Brittas Empire, treated nearly 400 guests to a night of celebration and laughter as the air conditioning and refrigeration industry paid homage to its considerable achievements over the past year.

Predictably perhaps, the environment and energy efficiency dominated this year's event. These included awards for Mitsubishi Electric's series of renewable energy seminars; ThermaCom and its sister company ThermOzone for its R22 chiller refurbishment scheme; and ebm-papst for its promotion of 'whole life' equipment costs.

Air Conditioning Product of the Year went to Trox AITCS for its CO2 Mission Critical Cooling for data centres. Arctic Circle followed up its success in 2005 by landing the Refrigeration Product of the Year Award for its Simply C condensing unit.

Another major awards included a second consecutive success in the Product Distributor of the Year Award for Daikin distributor Space Airconditioning.

Contractor of the Year Awards went to Worthington Nicholls and Ceilite Airconditioning with fellow contractor Adcocks picking up the second Training Initiative Award.


Faber Maunsell won the Consultant of the Year trophy.


Training Initiative of the Year
Sponsored by ACR News
Joint winners: Mitsubishi Electric & Adcock Group

Marketing Initiative of the Year
Sponsored by Panasonic
Winner: ebm papst

Environmental Initiative of the Year
Sponsored by Vaillant
Winner: ThermaCom/ThermOzone

Product Distributor of the Year
Sponsored by H&V Review
Winner: Space Airconditioning

Contractor of the Year (over £10m turnover)
Sponsored by Space Airconditioning
Winner: Worthington Nicholls

Contractor of the Year (under £10m turnover)
Sponsored by LG Electronics
Winner: Ceilite Airconditioning

Consultant of the Year
Sponsored by Toshiba Carrier
Winner: Faber Maunsell

Refrigeration Product of the Year
Sponsored by Hitachi Europe
Winner: Arctic Circle

Air Conditioning Product of the Year
Sponsored by Hawco Refrigeration
Winner: Trox AITCS

The Alan Moor Award
Winner: Mike Nankivell (Space Airconditioning