Urban Green Council
Most multifamily buildings have a straightforward and actionable path to compliance.
Local Law 97 (LL97) is sometimes cast as a law about gleaming Manhattan office towers and luxury condos. While they draw the headlines, most of LL97’s 50,000 covered buildings are the more ordinary places where many New Yorkers live: co-ops, condos, market-rate rentals and rent-stabilized apartment buildings.
by IFRS
This week marks the issuance of the inaugural IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, designed to provide a global baseline of sustainability-related disclosures for the capital markets.
Better information leads to better economic decisions. IFRS S1 requires companies to communicate the sustainability-risks and opportunities they face over the short, medium, and long term. The requirements are designed to ensure that companies provide investors information relevant to decision-making. IFRS S2 sets out specific climate-related disclosures and is designed to be used with IFRS S1. Both Standards are based on recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
ESG Today
The IFRS Foundation’s International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) announced today the official launch of its new global sustainability and climate disclosure standards, expected to form the basis for emerging sustainability reporting requirements by regulators around the world, and marking a major step towards the integration of sustainability reporting into the broader financial reporting process.
The new standards will begin applying for annual reporting periods beginning as of January 2024, with companies beginning to issue disclosures against the standards in 2025.
Bioenergy Insight
An innovative biogas-to-grid project has been celebrated at the New York City Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP’s) Newtown Creek Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility (WRRF) in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
DEP and National Grid were joined by New York City Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi, EPA Region 2 Administrator Lisa Garcia, elected officials and community members last week.
The project, a first of its kind, is producing a reliable source of clean, renewable energy, reducing the amount of organic waste sent to landfills, and is already improving air quality, according to NYC.
Press Release
In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, AstraZeneca (AZN) is partnering with Vanguard Renewables to enable the delivery of renewable natural gas (RNG) to all of its sites in the United States by the end of 2026.
From June 2023, AstraZeneca will begin purchasing RNG produced by Vanguard Renewables for its Newark Campus in Delaware, where the Company packages 26 medicines for distribution across the U.S. and makes medicine formulations for global supply. By 2026, this collaboration will enable as much as 650,000 million British thermal units (MMBtu), or 190,500 megawatt hours (MWh) per year, of RNG to be used across AstraZeneca’s U.S. sites, equivalent to the energy required to heat more than 17,800 U.S. homes for a year.
M-RETS
The I-REC Standard Foundation (“I-REC Standard”) is partnering with a new international consortium to develop a standardized tracking methodology for biomethane and biogas to support greater decarbonization through alternatives to natural gas. I-REC Standard and the new consortium (the “Consortium”) formed by Instituto Totum, M-RETS, and Evident have finalized a memorandum of understanding to develop a Product Code for biogas and biomethane (the “I-REC(G) Product Code”) that will adhere to the strict requirements of the I-REC Standard’s International Attribute Tracking Standard.
By WasteDive
How the EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard program changes could be a boon for landfill and AD operators.
By DTN
LINCOLN, Neb. (DTN) — This past December, EPA proposed adding an electric-renewable identification numbers program, or e-RINS, to the Renewable Fuel Standard to grow biogas-based electricity production to help fuel electric vehicles. During a recent public hearing, environmentalists expressed concern the new program would lead to a proliferation of new confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, as more farmers try to capture the potential value of methane from increased manure production.
By Laurence Hammack
State regulators have approved a plan by Roanoke Gas Co. to convert biogas from a sewage treatment plant into natural gas for distribution to customers in the region.
In an order issued Monday, the State Corporation Commission found that the joint project with the Western Virginia Water Authority is in the public interest.