Industrial, Sourcing Renewables  -  November 9, 2023

AstraZeneca Collaborates to Boost RNG Productivity

AstraZeneca (AZN) is leveraging its global industrial-scale manufacturing and digital capabilities to boost U.S. renewable natural gas (RNG) productivity.

The pharmaceutical company is collaborating with Vanguard Renewables. 

The two companies plan to work together to increase RNG yield and generate a step change improvement in the production of RNG. The collaboration also aims to add RNG capacity to the U.S. power grid and build capabilities in sustainable innovation for broader public benefit.

"The reality is that there are many challenges in adopting new energy sources and bold action is needed if we are going to successfully transition to green energy," said Pam Cheng, Executive Vice President of Global Operations & IT and Chief Sustainability Officer for AstraZeneca, said in a statement. "Our collaboration with Vanguard Renewables is another important milestone on our path to net zero by driving deep decarbonization, not just across AstraZeneca’s own operations but across the healthcare sector and beyond."

The collaboration will pursue capacity and design improvements to Vanguard Renewables’ Farm Powered® process via innovative controls and chemistry to more quickly produce RNG using farm-based anaerobic digestion (AD) from food and farm waste. It also aims to develop Digital Twins for the AD process to enable rapid experimentation and modeling, including the potential integration of artificial intelligence (AI), and aims to enhance supply chain robustness to scale manufacturing and supply.

This announcement builds on the sector-first collaboration announced in June between AstraZeneca and Vanguard Renewables to deliver RNG to all of AstraZeneca’s U.S. research and manufacturing sites by the end of 2026.

AstraZeneca is on track to reduce GHG emissions from its global operations in Scopes 1 and 2 by 98% by 2026 from a 2015 baseline and aims to halve its entire value chain footprint by 2030.

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