7th July 2026
Article: From luxury to necessity: air-con and ventilation
Britain may not be built for heat, but its future increasingly demands that it is. Rathbone UK Opportunities Fund Manager Alexandra Jackson and Rathbone Greenbank Global Sustainability Fund Manager David Harrison explore the investment case behind cooling, ventilation and climate resilience.
Written by Alexandra Jackson, Fund Manager of the Rathbone UK Opportunities Fund & David Harrison, Fund Manager of the Rathbone Greenbank Global Sustainability Fund
Imagine you wanted to bake the world's most intricate cake. Not just any cake – one with billions of layers, each thinner than a human hair, stacked with atomic precision. You'd need a very special oven. In the semiconductor world, ASML makes that oven.
As the UK broils under record-breaking heat, the trains fail, the kids get sent home from school and workers weigh up a hellish Underground commute for the bastion of cool offices. Only one thing brings respite: air-con. And in the UK, it’s much less prevalent than we’d like.
Our nation isn’t known for its embrace of air-con. Apart from a fever-dream improvement for the tube during summer, it hasn’t really been seen as a necessity. But as climate change makes heatwaves more frequent and severe, this surely must change!
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