Cooling is no longer a background utility. In India’s rapidly warming cities, it is becoming central to health, productivity, and everyday quality of life. Rising temperatures, denser urban environments, and growing aspirations are pushing the country toward a major cooling transition, one that could shape how millions live and work over the next decade.
At the same time, the sector faces difficult questions. Can India expand cooling access without sharply increasing energy demand? Are current systems truly designed for Indian conditions, or merely adapted from global benchmarks? And as climate pressures intensify, what does responsible and sustainable cooling actually look like?
Ashish Goel, Co-founder and CEO of Optimist, believes the answers lie in rethinking cooling from the ground up. Under his leadership, Optimist is positioning itself around a built-for-India philosophy focused on energy efficiency, affordability, durability, and climate-conscious innovation tailored to local realities.
In an exclusive interview with Analytics Insight, Ashish Goel discusses his shift from the consumer industry to climate-tech entrepreneurship, why cooling should now be viewed as essential infrastructure, the gaps he sees in India’s current ecosystem, and how technology, policy, and urban planning must evolve together to future-proof the country’s cooling landscape. Here are the excerpts from the interview:
You’ve Transitioned from The Consumer Industry into Climate-Tech Entrepreneurship. What Prompted This Shift, and How Have Your Earlier Experiences Influenced Your Approach to This Sector?
My earlier entrepreneurial journey taught me that large categories often hide unmet needs in plain sight. Cooling is one of them. In a warming world, it is no longer just an appliance category, it increasingly affects health, sleep, productivity, and quality of life. India is at a pivotal moment, with rising incomes, rapid urbanization, and more frequent heat events converging. That creates both urgency and opportunity.
Personally, doing the right thing as a climate- and society-conscious person is paramount. Our goal is to improve climate adaptation in the developing world while minimizing negative societal and environmental impacts.
Cooling Has Traditionally Been Seen as a Background Utility, But That Perception is Changing Rapidly. How Do You See its Role Evolving Amid Rising Temperatures and Increasing Urbanization?
Cooling is moving from convenience to necessity. As cities densify and temperatures rise, it increasingly shapes how people live and work. It affects sleep quality, health outcomes, worker productivity, learning environments, and even the livability of urban neighborhoods. In many homes, especially during severe summers, cooling is becoming a basic form of resilience infrastructure. We are also seeing demand broaden beyond affluent users to middle-income families, renters, and first-time buyers.
That changes the sector's responsibility. Cooling must become more accessible, more efficient, and more reliable. The future leader in this category may be the company that best understands cooling not as a luxury product, but as an essential service for modern life.
In Your View, are We Underestimating the Scale of India’s Cooling Challenge, Particularly as Heatwaves Become More Frequent and Intense?
Yes, because we often frame cooling as appliance demand rather than a broader development challenge. India has hundreds of millions of people who still lack effective cooling, especially during peak summer. That affects health, sleep, productivity, education, and small business livelihoods.
At the same time, simply adding more conventional cooling is not enough. If future demand is met inefficiently, it can strain household budgets, electricity systems, and climate goals. So India faces a dual challenge: expand access rapidly while reducing the energy intensity of that access. Heatwaves are making this reality harder to ignore. But they also create an opportunity for India to lead in next-generation cooling solutions.
Many Existing Cooling Systems are Designed for Global Benchmarks and Later Adapted for Markets Like India. How Limiting is This Approach When Building Solutions for Extreme and Diverse Conditions?
It can be quite limiting because adaptation differs from designing with intent. India has highly varied conditions - dry heat, coastal humidity, dense urban heat islands, dust, voltage fluctuations, compact homes, and price-sensitive consumers. Products built around temperate-market assumptions may perform adequately in labs but miss real-world needs.
Here, running cost, durability, high-ambient performance, serviceability, and trust often matter more than brochure specifications. At Optimist, we believe India deserves products designed with Indian realities at the center, not added later as a market variant. When you start locally, engineering priorities become much clearer.
Based on Your Observations, Where does the Current Cooling Ecosystem Fall Short, Whether in Design Thinking, Infrastructure, or Mindset?
The ecosystem has progressed, but gaps remain across design, infrastructure, and mindset. In design, the industry can be too feature-focused rather than outcome-focused. Consumers care more about comfort, low bills, reliability, and peace of mind than about technical jargon.
On infrastructure, cooling demand is deeply linked to buildings, urban planning, and power systems. Poorly designed homes often force appliances to compensate for structural inefficiencies. On the mindset front, cooling is sometimes framed as the problem because it uses energy. That is incomplete. The real issue is inefficient cooling, not cooling itself. We need to treat cooling as a necessary infrastructure that must be delivered intelligently and sustainably.
There is a Growing Emphasis on Sustainability. How Do You Define ‘Responsible Cooling’ Beyond Just Energy Efficiency?
Energy efficiency is essential, but responsible cooling is broader than that. It means lower lifecycle impact through efficient operation, better refrigerants, durable products, and repairability. A product that fails early and gets replaced frequently is not truly sustainable. It also means affordability. If efficient cooling is financially out of reach, households will default to cheaper and less efficient alternatives.
Responsible cooling should also work with the wider system through smarter controls and lower grid stress. Most importantly, it must recognize that in hot climates, cooling can be a health and productivity need. At Optimist, we see responsible cooling as expanding comfort while shrinking waste.
With Optimist, you have adopted a ‘built-for-India’ approach. What were some of the early insights that shaped this philosophy?
One early insight was that Indian households think beyond the upfront price. They evaluate monthly electricity bills, service reliability, summer performance, and whether the purchase feels sensible over time. Another was that Indian conditions are demanding high temperatures, humidity in some regions, dust in others, voltage fluctuations, and long operating hours.
We also saw that many buyers want more transparency and trust. They want honest communication, predictable ownership costs, and confidence that support will be available if needed. That shaped Optimist. Our belief is simple: start with Indian realities, not imported assumptions. Built-for-India is less a slogan and more a design discipline.
Looking Ahead, What Shifts Across Technology, Policy, or Industry Thinking do You Believe are Critical to Future-Proof India’s Cooling Landscape?
India needs progress on multiple fronts. On technology, we need more efficient systems, smarter controls, and refrigerants with lower climate impact. At India’s scale, even small efficiency gains matter enormously.
On policy, stronger standards, incentives for high-efficiency adoption, and better building codes can accelerate change. In urban development, passive cooling through shading, ventilation, reflective materials, and climate-responsive architecture deserves more attention.
Most importantly, industry thinking must evolve from selling units to solving cooling outcomes. I remain optimistic. India has a habit of leapfrogging when necessity becomes clear. Cooling may be one of the next sectors to see that happen.