admin@webeing, Autore presso Global Trading

The new Global Trading website is online

We are excited to announce that our new website is finally online, representing a moment of great pride for us. After 19 years of activity, we are grateful for the progress that has led us here, and we are ready to embrace the future with renewed energy.

Our journey has been one of constant growth, both as a company and as individuals, progress which is the result of hard work and a constant commitment. We have learned from our mistakes, and we have grown in terms of experience and maturity. Our mission has never changed – to create healthier and safer environments for people – and it is this awareness which drives us to eagerly take on new challenges.

Change is a fundamental component of growth, and nearly a year ago we decided to undertake a process of overhauling and strengthening our corporate identity. The first step was the restyling of our logo in 2022, which symbolically represented the start of this new phase. Since then, we have worked tirelessly to build a website which measures up to our ambitions.

New goals: strengthening internationalisation

Our main goal with the new website is the internationalisation of the company: being a benchmark in Italy while strengthening our position in the international market, consolidating our leadership position in the HVAC and water system maintenance sector.

The new website look has been carefully designed to be modern, but without ever forgetting the values which have driven us from the very beginning. Our dedication to quality, innovation and safety remains unchanged!

This new chapter fills us with joy and pride, and we can’t wait to share our latest innovations and projects with you. Keep following us on our website and social media channels to stay up to date – it will be our pleasure to share our challenges and successes with you.

The future is bright, and we are ready to tackle it with passion and determination. Our new website is just the beginning of what we have in store for you. We will continue to push the boundaries of innovation and to embrace new opportunities to grow and serve you better.

ANAM 2023 – 14th AIISA NADCA Annual Meeting

The 14th edition of the AIISA NADCA Annual Meeting came to a close on 8 June 2023: an annual event open to all HVAC industry members and operators. The event took place in Bari, southern Italy, on 6, 7 and 8 June 2023, offering the chance to share knowledge, experience and perspectives about the inspection, maintenance and cleaning of HVAC systems.

The AIISA association, founded nearly 20 years ago by a group of companies that wanted to raise the quality of work in the sector, constantly strives to improve the well-being of end users. This year, AIISA has maintained its commitment to offer high-quality training, partnering with the NADCA as an exclusive partner in Italy. AIISA provides qualification courses for professional ASCSs (Air Systems Cleaning Specialists) and CVIs (Certified Ventilation Inspectors), guaranteeing comprehensive and recognised training for experts in the sector.

AIISA plays a key role in promoting hygiene in HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) systems, working in partnership with organisations, professional associations and health authorities. Together, they are committed to creating introductory seminars, courses and webinars dedicated to the importance of HVAC hygiene in order to protect the health of occupants. AIISA’s main goal is to ensure adequate training and awareness to improve indoor air quality, thus contributing to occupant well-being.

During the 14th AIISA NADCA Annual Meeting, important topics and discussions on the new frontiers of HVAC hygiene, innovative technologies in the sector, and best practices for system maintenance and cleaning were covered: a great opportunity to expand personal skills, as well as network with some of the main players in the sector.

“Our goal is to promote quality as knowledge,” said the president of AIISA, highlighting the association’s commitment to supplying effective solutions for a healthier HVAC environment. “We will share our experience and discuss future projects, which will help raise quality standards in the sector even further.”

The 14th AIISA NADCA Annual Meeting came to a successful close, leaving a significant mark in the field of HVAC hygiene. AIISA will continue to promote training, collaboration and innovation to guarantee safe and healthy HVAC environments for everyone.

Legionellosis: the new Italian Legislative Decree

On 23 February 2023, Italian Legislative Decree no. 18 (GU no. 55) was issued, listing the methods of implementation of Directive (EU) 2020/2184 of 16/12/2020, introducing Legionella as one of the microbiological parameters to take into consideration when assessing the quality of water intended for human consumption and requiring a risk assessment of water supply systems.

The monitoring focuses, in particular, on priority areas: hospitals, healthcare institutions, retirement homes, childcare facilities, schools, educational institutions, buildings with a lodging facility, restaurants, bars, sports and shopping centres, leisure, recreational and exhibition facilities, penal institutions and campgrounds.

It therefore involves guaranteeing the increased monitoring of high-occupancy places, or by categories potentially more vulnerable to infection.

Annex VIII of Italian Legislative Decree 18/2023 lists the mandatory actions and recommendations for the different types of facilities, with reference to ISTISAN report 22/32 (Guidelines for the assessment and management of water safety risk in internal distribution systems in priority and non-priority buildings and some ships pursuant to Directive (EU) 2020/2184).

The Legionella parameter is set at 1,000 CFU/litre.

Corrective measures may nevertheless be necessary even for values below this limit, for example, for facilities housing vulnerable individuals or in the case of infections and outbreaks. In these cases, the source of infection must be confirmed and the strain of Legionella identified.

Global Trading’s New Identity

Aiming for a better future, we are moving towards more responsible and informed daily operations. And it is responsibility that we want to talk to you about. What we have built in these first eighteen years of activity and what has led us to where we are today.

Today, we feel even more aware and up to the challenge we set in 2004. We have grown, we have changed, we have made mistakes and adjusted our course. We have evolved as people and as a company, and the desire to help people live and work in safer, healthier environments has never left us.

It was, and is still, our mission.

Over the years we have expanded our horizons, creating a group of companies headquartered in Miami (FL) in 2008 and in Szczecin (Poland) in 2019; and with new goals, we are here to tell you about our how our image is changing. Our field of work stated back then, i.e. “Maintenance of HVAC and water systems”, today includes something else we want to offer to all our clients: Health&Safety.

Our new logo has meanings which everyone can understand, and for us represents our context, in colours ranging from blue to green, uncontaminated air and water coming out of a pipe, and in abstract terms also a butterfly, the symbol of a clean and healthy environment; what you will find after we have completed our work. We also have a new tagline – Invisible yet essential, just like clean air – summing up what our clients have always appreciated about our work, and still do.

As of today, you will begin to see Global Trading’s new identity, new in its design, stronger than ever in its spirit, and as reliable as even in its efficiency.

ANAM 2022 – 13th AIISA NADCA Annual Meeting

From 6-8 July 2023, the ANAM meeting organised by the Italian Association of HVAC System Hygienists (AIISA) was held.

Health and well-being: let’s start again with indoor air quality

The theme of the event shone a light on the importance of indoor air quality for human health, highlighting the key role played by the air we breathe in indoor environments.

The air we breathe in indoor environments can be contaminated by a number of elements, including:

Fine dust/particulates
Dust carrying pathogenic agents
Gases and vapours
Foul odours
Formaldehyde
Radon

These contaminants can have a negative impact on human health, causing a series of respiratory, cardiovascular and neurological problems.

The ANAM meeting provided a broad overview of the risks to human health associated with poor indoor air quality, and presented a series of solutions to improve air quality in indoor environments.

The proposed solutions included:

Controlling relative humidity
Natural ventilation
Use of HEPA filters
Maintenance of HVAC systems
Use of natural cleaning products

The ANAM event was an important opportunity to once again raise public awareness about the health risks associated with poor indoor air quality and to promote solutions to improve it.

The event moderator was Alessandro Cecchi Paone.

The ANAM meeting represented an important step forward in the fight against poor indoor air quality and in occupational health and safety.

AIISA Update: CVI Exam

We are proud to announce that our colleague Michele Pinza has passed the CVI qualification exams set by the Italian Association of HVAC System Hygienists (AIISA) with flying colours.

The CVI qualification is the highest level of certification for HVAC system cleaning and sanitisation technicians, certifying the knowledge and skills required to assess the hygiene condition of HVAC systems, and knowledge of the system design and potential deficiencies from a hygiene point of view.

The CVI qualification course is organised by AIISA in partnership with the American organisation NADCA, and is divided into 7 modules:

Introduction to HVAC inspections
Risk management
HVAC systems and components
HVAC systems and impact on indoor air quality
Pre-inspection tasks
How to carry out inspections
Post-inspection tasks

We are proud of Michele and his success, and we are sure that this qualification will help him to provide an even higher quality service to our clients.

Congratulations, Michele!

About Legionella …

Summer is the riskiest period from the point of view of the risk of exposure to Legionella p. bacteria due to the general increase in temperatures.

Water systems, as well as HVAC systems, are potential centres for the development and spread of the Legionella bacterium, with stagnant water providing the most favourable conditions for growth.

The most critical time is when there are temperature changes between seasons (occurring twice a year, with the change from spring to summer and autumn to winter), during which heating or cooling systems are usually started up. These systems should have cleaning and sanitisation protocols in place for all the internal heat-exchange surfaces, those in direct contact with the air released into rooms.

The same applies to water systems, above all in accommodation facilities, when use of the systems intensifies after months of limited use which, unless prevention protocols are in place, can lead to a build-up of deposits liable to create the ideal environmental conditions for growth.

For water systems, it is also mandatory for system operators or owners to have a specific Legionella risk assessment document containing all the critical issues and specific risk factors relating to Legionella, along with a list of all activities already performed or to be performed to mitigate the risk of an outbreak as much as possible.

We recommend that all our clients always carry out preventive qualified and systematic maintenance so that their guests can safely use the facilities and to avoid any legal issues or potential shutdowns by health authorities and the requirement to carry out complete post-contamination disinfection of the entire system, with obvious financial and image ramifications.

We are always available to provide appropriate advice, as well as to propose dedicated, tailored plans to help you meet any and all requirements, with all our expertise and professionalism.

Our technical and sales department is at your disposal to conduct free inspections and assessments of the condition of your systems and anything else required to keep them safe and compliant

ANAM 2021 – 12th AIISA NADCA Annual Meeting

Once again this year, we attended the national meeting organised by AIISA (Italian Association of HVAC System Hygienists), of which we are a member, during which “hot” topics were discussed with many of the Italian players in the HVAC technology and maintenance sector. It was also an opportunity for our ASCS-NADCA certified technicians to refresh their knowledge.

The tagline of the 2021 event was “HVAC sanitisation: technologies and solutions compared”

Needless to say, Sars-CoV-2 was the main driver of the discussions, and we were pleased to point out that we at Global Trading had already internally put in place a series of processes and technologies to guarantee our clients the highest levels of effectiveness in terms of minimising airborne microbiological risk, even before this important topic came to the fore mainly due to the spread of the virus.

It is also satisfying to see that what we work towards every day is considered of primary importance to maintaining good hygiene standards in systems and daily living environments, at work and at home: we will continue on this path so that we are always one step ahead and able to give the best possible service to all those who put their trust in us.

Metal-Eating Bacteria Discovered in Water

As we often find ourselves working on old water systems, we frequently have to deal with a high level of microbiological contamination, which is usually a warning sign that then leads to deep cleaning in order to return the system to a compliant hygienic state.

ossidazione — Typical oxidation and scaling inside a water system

In the case of systems installed using materials and methods from the last century, for example, iron pipework, the level of contamination is always combined with a high level of oxidation which, in the long term, leads to a progressive and constant drop in water circulation performance, which is more evident in hot water circuits, but also in cold water/mains supply circuits.

Widespread understanding of these phenomena has always led to the belief that the main cause was a high level of water hardness – in other words the percentage of calcium, sodium and other metal ions dissolved in the water – and the resulting reaction with the inner surface of the pipework, above all during periods of stagnation, setting off a whole series of processes able to deposit layer after layer of precipitated material, resulting in the blockage of most of the cross-section of the pipe.

In reality it is extremely likely that this phenomenon is not the manifestation of exclusively chemical-physical processes, but also partially biological ones: it has recently been discovered, purely by chance, that chemolithotrophic bacteria exist in water, in other words bacteria able to survive and proliferate solely by “consuming” metals, able to extract the energy they need to survive from them (for further information, see the bibliography link below the article).

We therefore cannot rule out, without further studies and publications, the existence of a direct link between the presence of these bacteria which produce energy from inorganic material, and a more complex trophic chain, where pathogens, including Legionella spp. and other ubiquitous potentially pathogenic species, can also find ideal conditions and the availability of all those factors which we know are ideal for growth.

We are still waiting for new evidence that could give us further insights into the problem, as well as a greater understanding of what leads to the development of pathogens, and for new methods that could eliminate the risk to our systems.

If you want to know more, visit our website to find our dedicated services.

Bibliographic notes:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2468-5

https://www.microbiologiaitalia.it/batteriologia/chemiolitoautotrofi-finalmente-identificati-i-batteri-che-si-nutrono-di-manganese/

Global Trading’s Legionella Treatment and Prevention Method Becomes a Case Study

copertina tesi — The title of Giorgia Ruffini’s dissertation (in Italian): “Prevention and control of Legionella in water systems in order to contain biological risk”.

The serious issue of Legionella, which we have always placed great emphasis on in order to develop sound and effective methods as well as to provide adequate, effective responses, has allowed us to develop a flexible protocol able not only to reduce the incidence of the problem within systems, but to involve the clients themselves in a training and education pathway which then has positive effects in terms of the dissemination of a culture of prevention.

It is therefore with great pleasure and no little pride that we can announce that we have been chosen as a case study for the dissertation of Giorgia Ruffini, who recently successfully completed her degree at the University of Ferrara, with a dissertation focused on the increasingly relevant issue of Legionella entitled “Prevention and control of Legionella in water systems in order to contain biological risk“. The dissertation makes extensive reference to the comparison between the most commonly used methods for treating systems based on chlorine and chloramine, and the method developed by Global Trading to solve the problem.

All this gives us further impetus to continue developing and offering innovative solutions in response to problems which are not always at the forefront and often undervalued in the mainstream culture of plant management, but which have a major impact on human health and well-being. It is with this spirit that we once again offer our congratulations to Giorgia Ruffini for her achievement, in the hope that it is just the starting point for a successful future career.