Global food producer JBS USA and GreenGasUSA are partnering to produce renewable natural gas at multiple JBS beef and poultry processing facilities across the U.S.
Climate change and food security are two seemingly competing challenges — feeding a future world of 10 billion people with safe, nutritious, affordable food while also urgently helping the food system address environmental impacts and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
JBS believes it has a responsibility to help lead sustainable transformation by example and, as a result, is undertaking a comprehensive approach to address its own GHG emissions while also helping to empower its value chain to collectively move forward. One of JBS’s key strategies to address its emissions is to adopt circular-economy technology to repurpose waste streams into renewable energy. This approach can help the food system meet the twin challenges of food security and addressing climate change impacts.
To move with speed and scale innovative circular economy solutions, JBS is partnering with GreenGasUSA to build upon JBS’s existing methane capture capabilities, with a goal to maximize methane capture and RNG production.
By installing GreenGasUSA’s on-site gas upgrading systems, biogas collected from the wastewater streams of JBS facilities will be purified into pipeline-quality RNG, allowing end users to displace fossil fuel usage.
The partnership will begin with initial installations at JBS facilities in Grand Island, Neb., and Hyrum, Utah; and the Pilgrim’s Sumter, S.C., facility. This collaboration is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at these facilities while improving wastewater operations and local air and water quality, and support the renewable energy market through the distribution of renewable natural gas. The project at Pilgrim’s Sumter facility is scheduled to be completed in early 2025, while the Grand Island and Hyrum projects are slated for completion at the end of 2025.
“At JBS and Pilgrim’s, we’re committed to reducing the impact of food production by partnering with stakeholders to reduce our carbon footprint. This collaboration with GreenGasUSA is a perfect example of these efforts,” said Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of JBS Foods USA. “This innovative approach takes what was once an unused byproduct of food production and transforms it to offset a significant amount of fossil fuels. This process can be a model for the rest of the industry to follow.”
The partnership with GreenGasUSA allows for a more circular solution for that biogas by converting it into a renewable fuel. Inserting this RNG into existing energy pipelines will displace the GHG emissions equivalent to 60 million miles driven by a car, or 26 million pounds of coal burned, annually.
“GreenGas is deeply committed to developing solutions that address GHG emissions in the most difficult-to-decarbonize industries,” said Marc Fetten, CEO and founder of GreenGasUSA. “We see tremendous opportunity in our partnership with JBS USA to significantly reduce on-site environmental impacts, produce sustainable, renewable energy, and support climate change initiatives in other industries.”
Source: JBS USA LLC
