On May 22, 2019 United Parcel Service (UPS), a global provider of shipping and delivery services, announced that the company would increase its use of renewable natural gas (RNG) in the United States. UPS purchased 170 million gasoline gallon equivalent (gge) from fuel supplier Clean Energy Fuels to meet this commitment, which supports UPS’s sustainability goals. RNG consumption has increased significantly in recent years, and according to UPS, this agreement will be the largest commitment to RNG to date by any company in the United States.
RNG is a transportation fuel derived from biogas through anaerobic digestion at landfills and other facilities. The biogas is cleaned of impurities and upgraded to meet the pipeline specifications for natural gas. The RNG can then be consumed as fuel in CNG and LNG vehicles, a common fuel alternative for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles that would otherwise run on diesel fuel.
RNG consumption in the United States increased significantly following a 2014 EPA ruling that allowed RNG, in either compressed or liquefied form, to qualify as a cellulosic biofuel as part of the Renewable Fuel Standard. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, nearly 270 million ethanol gallon equivalent (or about 185 million gge) of RNG were produced in 2018, a 133% increase compared with 2015 levels.