Radiative cooling: a decade of progress and the decade ahead

Abstract The accelerating rise in global temperatures and growing demand for cooling underscore the urgent need for sustainable thermal management solutions. Conventional cooling systems depend on energy-intensive processes and refrigerants that exacerbate atmospheric warming, creating a feedback loop that intensifies the very climate challenges they aim to mitigate. Radiative cooling (RC) offers a passive alternative by dissipating heat through infrared (IR) emission to the cold sink of outer space, thereby reducing temperature without external energy input. Since the first demonstration of sub-ambient daytime cooling using spectrally selective materials, advances in optical design and hybrid integration have extended RC capabilities from opaque to transparent, colored, and switchable forms. Moreover, applications have spanned buildings, electronics, and wearable systems and further emerged in extreme-environment space systems and bio-integrated platforms. However, the transition from laboratory demonstrations to large-scale implementation remains constrained by inconsistent performance metrics, material sustainability concerns, and integration challenges across diverse environmental conditions. Thus, future progress will require standardized evaluation frameworks, carbon neutrality through the entire lifecycle, and system-level strategies that align energy efficiency with ecological integrity. As RC evolves from a physical phenomenon to a practical technology embedded within infrastructure, its success will depend on not only material performance but also achieving harmony with Earth’s radiative balance. In this way, it will establish its essential role in sustainable thermal management on a planetary scale. Ultimately, RC’s true societal integration will require its incorporation into coordinated energy planning and policy frameworks, establishing it as a core component of a climate-balanced society.