WM will invest $825 million in its renewable energy footprint from 2022-2025 by expanding its renewable natural gas infrastructure. With the benefit of such investments, WM’s network of biomethane plants, landfill gas-to-electricity plants and other projects are estimated to enable the company to provide enough renewable energy to supply the equivalent of 1 million homes across North America and help fuel its entire natural gas vehicle fleet with biomethane by 2026. WM’s accelerated renewable natural gas investment positions the company to outpace its original goal of fueling 50% of its NGV fleet by 2025.
“We are committed to sustainability through our actions and investments and are proud to transform yesterday’s waste to fuel our future with renewable energy,” said Tara Hemmer, chief sustainability officer, WM. “As an end-to-end vertically integrated environmental services provider, WM is uniquely positioned to expand our renewable natural gas footprint within our business. Renewable energy from WM landfill sites is an excellent source of alternative energy that beneficially uses existing landfill gas for communities. In addition, it provides an opportunity to close the loop with WM’s natural gas fleet, which is the largest fleet of its kind in North America. With this new investment, we are excited to increase projected production at WM-operated renewable natural gas facilities by approximately 600% in the next four years.”
Today, WM has 16 plants across North America through a mix of WM plants and third-party developers. By 2026, the company plans to expand its network with 17 new biomethane projects in several areas across North America including: Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania in the U.S. as well as Quebec and Ontario in Canada. The increase in biogas production WM expects from the new investments will lead to displacement of approximately 1.3 million metric tons of CO₂ greenhouse gas emissions by 2026, the equivalent to 3 billion miles driven by an average gasoline passenger vehicle.
WM continues to support renewable energy efforts to increase broader adoption by others, including ultra-low-carbon intensity dairy projects, where methane gas is captured from dairy operations to fuel WM’s vehicle fleet.
Source: WM
