British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca has partnered with Future Biogas to power its UK sites with low-carbon energy as part of the company’s decarbonisation drive.
Future Biogas will build a renewable energy plant that will enable AstraZeneca to replace natural gas for heating and cooling at its sites with biomethane.
The biomethane plant will be built in East Anglia to power AstraZeneca’s sites in Macclesfield, Cambridge, Speke, and Luton.
The deal will help the pharmaceutical firm to move closer to its goal of becoming a zero-carbon business by the end of 2025 and to achieve carbon negative by 2030. The company will also be transitioning to 100% electric vehicles to achieve these goals, according to the statement.
The facility will convert locally grown crops into about 125 GWh of biomethane capacity, equivalent to the heat required by 9,000 homes.
Through the partnership with Future Biogas, AstraZeneca will access high quality bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) through the Northern Lights partnership in Norway, a joint venture supported by the Norwegian Government.
Carbon dioxide generated through the Future Biogas plant will be captured and transported to the Northern Lights storage facility, where it will be permanently sequestered 2.6km under the seabed.
Heat and power are critical to the manufacture of medicines and therefore decarbonising the healthcare supply chain depends on access to clean sources of heat.
Project construction will begin in 2023.
Juliette White, Vice President Global SHE & Operations Sustainability at AstraZeneca, said: “At AstraZeneca, we are committed to operating in a responsible way that recognises the interconnection between the needs of patients, society and the limitations of our planet.
“We’re proud to be working in partnership with innovative organisations like Future Biogas to enable the sustainable discovery, development and manufacture of medicines and vaccines. Through such collaborations, we’re making progress on our ambition to become carbon zero across our operations by end of 2025 and carbon-negative across our value chain by 2030.”
Future Biogas is one of the UK’s largest biogas producers which currently operates 10 biogas plants.
