Dairy Manure Cuts Carbon Emissions
One of the world’s pharmaceutical giants is using dairy-cow manure and food waste to help reduce its reliance on natural gas as well as cut carbon emissions at the same time. United Kingdom drug company AstraZeneca is partnering with Vanguard Renewables, based in Massachusetts, to use biogas for heat and power by the end of 2026 in all its U.S.-based research and manufacturing facilities.
AstraZeneca began in June 2023 to purchase renewable natural gas produced by Vanguard Renewables for its Newark Campus in Delaware, where the company packages 26 medicines for distribution across the United States and makes medicine formulations for global supply. By 2026 the collaboration will enable as much as 650,000 million British thermal units or 190,500 megawatt hours per year of renewable natural gas to be used across AstraZeneca’s U.S. sites. That’s equivalent to the energy required to heat more than 17,800 homes for one year across the United States.