As COVID-19 rampages through vulnerable minority populations with tragic consequences, and protests for racial justice surge among a similar demographic, city climate planners see a renewed focus on climate justice.

The pandemic, in some ways, has been a trial run for the anticipated coming impacts of climate change — a not-so-distant future in which low-income and minority populations are the most at risk. As mayors make quick strategic changes to address the short-term COVID crisis, they are also in the midst of planning for similar long-term climate issues.

Last week, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, an organization of mayors from around the global, launched a Detailed Agenda for Green and Just Recovery from COVID-19 to ensure that this crisis propels sustainable innovations instead of a return to old ways. 

“Equity is really at the heart of our recovery in the city,” said Mayor LaToya Cantrell of her city, New Orleans, during the C40 press conference. “We’ve had 542 deaths [due to COVID-19] in our city and out of the 542, 404 were Black or Brown. Our response to this pandemic is an opportunity to create a much more healthier, more sustainable and equitable city, no doubt about it.”

Another organization, Climate Mayors, a network of 438 United States mayors, hopes to provide peer-to-peer sharing between American cities to help adapt to and in some ways reverse our changing climate. It has helped fill the U.S- shaped hole in leadership left by the Trump administration. 

“We want to make sure we’re reflecting back to the international community that there is a lot of effort going on to reduce emissions and energy technology,” said James Ritchotte, director of Climate Mayors.

GreenBiz recently spoke with eight chief sustainability officers and mayors that are part of the Climate Mayors network to understand what actions they are taking to ensure climate justice is embedded into their climate resiliency plans. Below are excerpts from the interviews, edited for length and clarity.

Boston

Boston is aiming to be carbon neutral by 2050 by focusing on their 86,000 buildings. The city is also investing in seawalls to prevent erosion due to sea level rise. 

Christopher Cook, chief of environment, energy and open space

On COVID-19 pandemic learnings that can apply to climate change initiatives: 

What COVID has put in the forefront is how interwoven racial equity is with our climate crisis. Those social equity gaps in our society show how intentional we have to be in the climate work to make sure that we’re not exacerbating the situation. We have to be very intentional about job creation, or else our most socially vulnerable won’t be able to fully participate. We started very intentional conversations with our Office of Workforce Development to make sure that we are connecting directly with communities of color, and are starting a job training program for city retrofitting.

On how COVID-19 gives us a chance to help vulnerable populations: 

We can take [the pandemic as an] opportunity to be intentional about creating a cleaner respiratory environment for our citizens, especially those living in affordable housing. People need to have air filters and high-quality HVAC systems. Can we also use this as an opportunity to electrify those systems and retrofit those systems? So as we make buildings more efficient and cleaner from a carbon perspective, can we also make them healthier buildings?

Carmel, Indiana

Carmel is focusing on making its city greener through transportation initiatives, including more bike access and roundabouts. 

Mayor James Brainard

On how making the city more bike accessible is an environmental justice issue:

Everybody talks about affordable housing, it’s really more about affordable living. A lot of city design requires huge amounts of a poor person’s expenditures be spent on gas, automobiles and insurance. We unveiled 225 miles of bike trails so you can get anywhere within the city of Carmel by bicycle, which is also important for environmental justice. To somebody who can’t afford a car, that makes a huge difference. So many times we’ve designed our cities so that not having a car isn’t even an option. We are also working to make our city beautiful, too. Wealthy people can travel to some of the most beautiful places on earth. But for people who can’t, they have a right to have their city be beautiful as well. So we focused on that through public art and beautiful parks and trails.

On environmentalism as a Republican issue: 

[Environmentalism] is a Republican issue. It was Teddy Roosevelt that started the national parks. It was Eisenhower who set aside the arctic reserve. It was Nixon and Ford who signed the EPA into existence. The Migratory Bird act was Nixon. The Endangered Species Act was for Nixon. The Republicans were very much environmentalists, starting with Teddy Roosevelt. Ford was always environmentalist, and got a lot done. And it disappoints me that this is something the Republican party has not focused on recently.

On how two ideologies can come to the same decision that benefits climate:

I had a guy who was very conservative giving me a hard time about spending $750,000 on switching to LED streetlights. So I said to him, “Well, what about the cost savings?” Because of less electricity, the savings will be about a 22 percent a year annualized rate of return on that money we invest. I showed him the bills. And he said “Oh, I guess this is a pretty good idea.” So he didn’t care about the environment. But he did care a lot about the return on investment. By the time we ended the conversation he got to the same place. But not for the environmental reason, but for a fiscal reason. People can get in the same place for different reasons.

Houston

Houston has committed to 100 percent renewable energy for all municipal buildings on its way to reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.  

Marissa Aho, chief of resilience officer

On Houston’s strategy for imbedding climate justice into climate resilience:

In January we released a report with recommendations particularly related to flood resilience. We focused on three historically underinvested communities in Houston: Independence Heights; Greenspoint; and Kashmere Gardens, which is part of Mayor [Sylvester] Turner’s Complete Communities Plan initiative, which is looking at 10 of our most historically under invested African American and Hispanic, Latinx neighborhoods, and creating action plans to improve quality of life. A majority of the key actions are really understanding that our most vulnerable people, places and systems are disproportionately affected when there is any disruption. So, we have a number of targets but one is to address the huge disparities in life expectancy depending on what neighborhood you grew up in or live in. And that pre-COVID was a 24-year disparity. 

Los Angeles

Los Angeles is on track for a 45 percent decrease in emissions by 2025 with the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. The city’s climate initiatives was written in conjunction with creating new green jobs as part of Los Angeles’ Green New Deal.  

Lauren Faber O’Connor, chief sustainability officer

On how Los Angeles plans to address heat issues to benefit lower-income communities: 

A big concern of climate change are impacts of heat and extreme heat in Los Angeles. Some of our citywide goals just facilitate a cooler, more resilient city, and I mean cooler as in temperature. This needs to happen citywide but we’re targeting the rollout in communities that are in greatest need and have the lowest tree canopy and the most vulnerability, like an elderly population, low-income population who may not be able to run an AC if they even have an AC. We want to make sure that we’re cooling those neighborhoods, and doing it in a way that meets their needs by focusing on the walk to a bus stop and at the area around the bus stop. The laying of cool pavement to reduce the urban heat island effect by literally paving a lighter shade over our streets. And then combining those with local tree planting to create more canopy cover and doing those things in neighborhoods that need it the most.

On focusing money towards overlooked communities:

The Transformative Climate Communities Program was created by the state through the climate investments, cap and trade dollars. We worked with local community leaders to prepare projects that would apply for state funding. The first year the Watts neighborhood was awarded a $30 million grant… They’ve suffered a lot of injustices and need more significant and more direct investment. We prioritize that with incredible innovation by electrifying the local buses, electrifying the service in Watts. But also providing an EV Car Share service, bike share and bike lanes, multiple pedestrian improvements to allow for more walking, rooftop solar for home. What’s incredible is that when we hear from our community leaders, they would say to us that Watts is always last. In this project, LA has put Watts in the front of the line.

Oakland, California

Oakland’s climate action plan to get to carbon neutrality includes funding for a downtown shuttle, constructing electric vehicle charging stations and launching a green retrofitting program for residential houses, among 29 other initiatives.  

Daniel Hamilton, sustainability program manager

On climate programs that address inequities: 

When we talked about the need to create denser urban environments to accommodate more people, the community said, “Well, it’s not just about the densities and the land use. Its about housing discrimination.” The climate solutions to these couldn’t be ignorant of or silent on those types of topics. The action items are designed specifically to address the broader social issues as well as climate issues. It’s not just a greenhouse gas reduction policy. It’s a policy that targets the systems that create the greenhouse gases in ways that address historic inequities and provide some solutions. An example of this would be the action items focused on anti-displacement, so keeping people rooted in Oakland. When we talked about this densification of land uses, housing came up as a big issue. But the final action item doesn’t say “provide greater densities.” The final action item is actually support for the community land trust model to build wealth within the communities to allow people who are in Oakland to stay in the community and not have to move out to second- and third-tier suburbs and drive a lot further to get to the same jobs they exist in today.

Orlando, Florida

Orlando hopes to power the city entirely off renewable energy by 2050. But the city’s 2018 Community Action Plan is on an even quicker timeline, establishing goals for 2040 that include getting the government’s 232 buildings up to LEED code, planting 20,000 trees and increasing the electrical vehicle infrastructure. 

Chris Castro, director of the office of sustainability and resilience

On creating programs that help low-income communities meet overall climate goals: 

Low- and moderate-income communities often are spending two and three times as much per square foot on utilities than more affluent communities. The landlords of these homes or apartments are reluctant to make ongoing maintenance improvements to them. So they have very outdated air conditioning systems, outdated insulation and lighting. As a result, they have less resources, but they’re spending more on their utility bills. In one of our notorious communities of color, Paramore, people are burdened by upwards of 18 percent of their household income being spent on utilities. The average across in Orlando is 4.5 percent. That has helped us to develop new programs. We’ve partnered with a nonprofit called SELF, Solar Energy Loan Fund. We helped them establish their regional headquarters in Orlando. They provide funding, specifically to low and moderate income communities for home energy improvements, reducing energy and water use, lighting and HVAC, onsite solar, and even sewer and water improvements. It’s a loan product that is really looking at an unsecured very low interest loan for homeowners. So a person with a low credit score of 500 can get a loan for 5 percent to 6 percent interest from SELF versus getting laughed out of the bank when they’re asking for a loan to get a new AC system. This is an opportunity for people on the low and moderate income spectrum to have the financial tools to make these home improvements that improve quality of life, save energy, save water and reduce carbon right at the end of the day. I think we’ve invested about $150,000 over the last few years to help them out.

Richmond, Virginia

To reach the city’s goal of an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emission by 2050, the sustainability office is focusing on increasing alternative energy options with solar panel installations. 

Alicia Zatcoff, sustainability manager

On climate mapping helped with the COVID response:

We have a pretty sophisticated mapping, the equity index. We have gone through and assessed and about 20 social vulnerability factors including geographic-based and demographic factors, resulting over 140 layers and pieces of data on the map. We rank those pieces of land using our climate equity index to identify where new parks or open spaces could be. We mapped our heat index looking for our heat islands. Using the equity index we can prioritize those areas, which is a different approach than we would have taken a year or two ago. So we’ve done that for climate. And then when COVID hit, we went back to see what the risk factors are for getting COVID and then the factors for getting severe disease or dying. And what we found is they are so closely aligned with the climate risk and vulnerability factors. The community that was on the frontline of climate change, we’re also on the front line of COVID.

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Saint Paul’s top priorities are to become a carbon-neutral community and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent by 2050. The government buildings are hoping to decarbonize by 2030. 

Russell Stark, chief resilience officer 

On how car sharing will benefit low-income communities 

We are making sure that at the same time that we’re reducing emissions, we’re actually creating a mobility access benefit for our lowest-income communities. For example, car sharing has operated on a round trip model. Most of the parking locations are where the market is, usually around colleges or high density neighborhoods or in some cases better-off neighborhoods. When we thought about expanding our car share was to expand the service into some of our lowest income communities and communities of color. We are partnering with community-based organizations to expand that service into 10 locations that really haven’t had the service before.

Earlier this year, Danone became the first listed company to become an “enterprise à mission,” a new type of corporation created by a 2019 French law. The pioneering governance structure will see the food giant officially entrench environmental, social and societal objectives into its bylaws, alongside more typical profit goals.

Danone, founded more than a century ago and famously declared an asset of national importance by the French government in 2005, has long prided itself on being a purpose-led business. Its new status is the latest in a string of moves the company has made to boost its environmental, social and governance (ESG) credentials as it works towards meeting a highly publicized aim of becoming one of the first B Corps certified multinational.

Eric Soubeiran, the company’s vice president of nature and water cycle, explained that weaning the company off intensive farming is at the core of its new sustainability mission. Danone, which owns a range of household brands including Volvic, Evian, Actimel, Alpro and Activia, is first and foremost a dairy company, after all.

“If you really want to do sustainability well in a company, you need to know your business well,” Soubeiran said. For a food company, that means knowing how and where you source your ingredients, what your customers want, and understanding the provenance of your direct and indirect carbon emissions. “Concretely, when you look at Danone, 60 percent of our carbon footprint is from agriculture,” Soubeiran acknowledged. “Eighty-nine percent of our water footprint is from agriculture. [Sustainability] starts from knowing your Scope 3 [value chain emissions]. It is looking at the elephant in the room, and going after it piece by piece. That is why it’s very important for us to have an opinion about the agriculture model we want.”

[Sustainability] starts from knowing your Scope 3 [value chain emissions]. It is looking at the elephant in the room, and going after it piece by piece.

As such, the company is working with farmers worldwide to adopt a regenerative approach to farming that encourages healthier soil and ecosystems, better water stewardship and a broader diversity of cultivated seeds and crops. Danone is providing training to farmers in France to make the switch to new techniques to meet a goal to rely on 100 percent regenerative farming in the country by 2025. And in order to encourage the approach beyond its supply chain, Danone recently founded the One Planet Business for Biodiversity (OP2B) initiative, a cross-sector effort to improve the private sector’s approach to biodiversity.

The strained food production system is begging for reform, argued Soubeiran. “It is very clear in Danone’s vision that the food system is broken,” he reflected. The practices ensconced in the “green revolution” of the 1970s, he said, have “intensified agriculture practices to a point where we have created a situation where food has become a commodity. And by definition, a commodity has no value or very limited value. That’s why [as an industry] we are focused on volume, not quality, and how we have reached a point where we accept the fact that 30 percent of all food produced globally is wasted.”

The transition away from intensive farming, he stressed, not only can prevent the loss of wild species, create better working conditions for farmers and livestock, end monocropping and protect local ecosystems, but is also a lever that Danone must pull if it is to reduce its carbon emissions to net zero by mid-century in line with global climate goals.

Soubeiran has experience disrupting what he dubs “linearalized” food chains and moulding them to be more sustainable. In a previous role at Danone, he was charged with managing the company’s milk supply during the period when France liberalized its previously tightly controlled milk market. The company decided to eschew a price mechanism focused on volume and set its milk price based on the cost of production, giving Danone leeway to firm up production conditions with farmers. “We wanted to stabilize our relationship with farmers so that we could discuss the way they were farming, talk about sustainability and animal welfare,” Soubeiran explains. “It’s hard to do that when you have huge [price] volatility.”

Indeed, Soubeiran is under no illusions that the wholesale transition to regenerative farming comes at a cost premium, despite growing interest in sustainable products from customers across Danone’s markets. “There is a market for sustainable food — people look for it — but we need to develop parallel stream of financing,” he said. “That’s why Danone has signed the green recovery appeal at the European level, because we believe the transformation and the renegotiation of the agriculture policy is instrumental to that.”

There is a market for sustainable food — people look for it — but we need to develop parallel stream of financing.

An additional stream of financing is targeted at helping farmers improve the quality of what they are producing while keeping prices down for the customer, Soubeiran explained.

As such, in May the company urged the EU to use its upcoming Farm to Fork and Biodiversity 2030 strategies to establish an EU Common Food Policy that provides incentives to farmers to switch to regenerative practices. These, the company suggested, could range from crop and livestock insurance that minimizes the risk of lower yields through the transition process; “innovative multi-stakeholder financing mechanisms” or carbon bonds for agricultural products with pricing adjusted to reflect soil carbon sequestration performance; and guarantees of “first loss” inspired by the renewable energy sector that would allow farmers to fund the transition to more resilient agricultural systems.

Soubeiran contends that the coronavirus has, in some respects, made his mission easier, given that the animal-originating coronavirus has underscored how ecological systems support human life. “If we protect biodiversity, we are basically protecting the diversity of DNA,” Soubeiran mused. “There’s also a sanitary aspect to it, given that we’re protecting corridors of biodiversity. While that was not that obvious six months ago, that’s obvious now for everyone.” He points out more than 65 percent of all emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic — transmitted to people from animals.

But, while the zoonotic coronavirus has turbocharged public understanding of biodiversity and served as a “call to action” for Danone’s corporate sustainability initiatives, Soubeiran concedes that on a practical level the pandemic has hampered the firm’s ongoing efforts to transition farmers to regenerative practices. For example, when social distancing regulations were at their most demanding, trips to train farmers on new practices and discuss investment and financing plans became logistically impossible.

On the bright side, however, the crisis has underlined the resilience of Danone’s direct sourcing model, he says, which minimized supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic. The firm sources 75 percent of products directly from suppliers, Soubeiran explained, adding that the model is a major boon in a world where collaborations and knowledge-sharing between multinationals and their suppliers are critical to meeting carbon targets and other joint sustainability objectives.

Soubeiran contends that there is a healthy appetite from company shareholders for Danone’s growing file of sustainability initiatives, in particular its decision at the close of last year to publish carbon-adjusted earnings per share (carbon EPS) in its quarterly reports. The metric sends a very strong message to shareholders that the company “has done its homework” on counting its Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions, according to Soubeiran, as well as exposing them to the invisible cost of carbon. Danone, banking on the assumption it reached peak emissions in 2019, is confident that its carbon-adjusted EPS will rise over the years to come. And investors are engaging with the approach — in 2018, Soubeiran estimates he had 70 interactions with shareholders; last year, it had more than doubled to 190.

Moreover, in late June, 99 percent of shareholders backed Danone’s motion to become an “enterprise à mission,” a turnout dubbed “mind-blowing” by Danone chief executive Emmanuel Faber. “Huge kudos to our shareholders after today’s unanimous support of the change of Danone’s by-laws to incorporate health, planet, people and inclusiveness objectives as part of our mission,” Faber enthused. “You showed evidence that finance can change the world. It is on us, boards and CEOs, CFOs to engage finance on what matters. It responds. Big time.”

Very often, sustainability is seen as a constraint — about less carbon, less pesticide, less fertilizer.

Over the coming months, Soubeiran will focus on steering a cross-sector effort to improve the private sector’s approach to biodiversity, dubbed the One Planet Business for Biodiversity (OP2B) initiative.

The coalition, launched by Danone at last year’s UN COP climate conference, counts consumer goods heavyweights L’Oréal, Google, McCain, Walmart, Kellogg, Nestlé and Unilever. The companies have promised to work together to scale up regenerative agriculture practices, to increase the number of ingredients sourced in order to reduce the world’s reliance on a handful of crops, and to better protect local ecosystems through nature restoration and eliminating deforestation. The group is developing a framework for action that will be unveiled at the IUCN World Conservation Congress, postponed six months to January in the wake of the pandemic.

The initiative has been inspired by “systems thinking,” Soubeiran explained, and will focus on specific actions that can be monitored instead of overarching science-based targets or percentage-based goals. “With OP2B the focus is on action, action that can trigger a transformation,” he said, adding that that the single-issue, action-orientated initiative is “quite a new way of collaborating” for Danone.

Overall, Soubeiran is buoyed by the boundless opportunities’ biodiversity boosting initiatives present to food companies looking to enrich their portfolios — a fact underlined by this week’s World Economic Forum study highlighting how a nature-focused recovery could deliver over $10 trillion of economic gains. “Very often, sustainability is seen as a constraint — about less carbon, less pesticide, less fertilizer,” Soubeiran reflected. “But biodiversity is about more: More choice, more taste, more experience. It’s a very interesting topic and creates a positive spin on sustainability.”

Agricultural waste from food crops either is traditionally left to rot or is burned, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. About 270 million tons of banana waste are left to rot annually, and in India, 32 million acres of rice straw are burned.

Circular Systems’ Agraloop, in contrast, sees food crop waste as a valuable resource, a feed stock for natural fiber products. Winner of the 2018 Global Change Award, the company aims to unlock value for the textile and fashion industry, for farmers and for the planet.

Bard MBA alum Nicole Pamani recently spoke with Isaac Nichelson, CEO and co-founder at Circular Systems, about how the company’s circular production processes are helping to redefine the meaning of sustainable materials in the fashion industry. They discussed how Agraloop functions like a mechanical sheep, and how the COVID-19 pandemic is causing us to rethink the way we produce products. 

Nicole Pamani: Tell us the Agraloop story.

Isaac Nichelson:Agraloop is the world’s first regenerative industrial system for textile production. It originated from the mind of Yitzac Goldstein, whose natural systems thinking drives him at the core. It’s recently been described by our friend Nick Tipon from Fibershed, one of the world’s experts in regenerative farming practices and fiber systems, as essentially a giant mechanical sheep.  

A sheep consumes a lot of biomass left over from food production, basically agricultural stubble. That biomass goes into its belly, where the sheep breaks it down and turns it into nutrition. Finally, the sheep fertilizes the field, trampling it in ever so perfectly, which improves the fertility cycle.

This is exactly what Agraloop does at an industrial scale. It takes the leftover biomass from food crop production and upgrades that fiber, using some of the waste to create energy. When we’re done, what’s left over are only beneficial effluent and super high value products, rather than the caustic salts that come from traditional fiber processing or dye processing. 

The effluent is actually perfect organic fertilizer, and we take it back to the farms to build soil fertility and further sequester carbon — just like the sheep does. We’re able to provide farmers with more income for waste that was actually climate liability because it’s usually burned. 

This is more than just a better way to produce fiber from food crop waste. It’s literally showing the world that we can create industrial systems that are beneficial to humanity and to our habitat.

Pamani: How do the textiles produced by Agraloop stack up against recycled fabrics?

Nichelson: With this process, we’re changing people’s whole conception of what a recycled fabric is. Traditionally, recycled cotton textiles have been downplayed as inferior because in most cases they are.

By tearing apart the fabric, mechanical recycling creates shorter staple fibers, and that creates a less strong yarn product. The lack of strength causes issues like pilling. Because it’s generally blended with recycled polyester, it also has problems of inconsistency. These issues have prevented the massive growth of traditional mechanically recycled textiles. 

But that can all be fixed. Yitzac has innovated again around the creation of a yarn system that allows us to produce stronger-than-traditional virgin yarns that are also higher performing than traditional synthetics. Their moisture management will meet or exceed the performance of the Adidas Climate Cool or Nike Dri Fit with no chemical finishing and all recycled and organic inputs.

The COVID-19 global pandemic is forcing us to rethink our patterns of consumption and the way we produce things.

Pamani: What’s the next big sustainability challenge in the circular fashion industry?

Nichelson: We’re having it delivered to us inadvertently right now with the COVID-19 global pandemic. Within this moment so much loss is happening, but it’s also forcing us to rethink our patterns of consumption and the way we produce things. It’s bringing home the idea of how fragile our habitat is and how sacred our health is. 

As we sit in our houses, either laid off or working from home with a lot more time on our hands, we’re looking inward at this incredible crisis. The whole world — but especially the tech, style and fashion industry — is collapsing in on itself right now because it’s unbalanced and totally unprepared for what’s to come.

What’s necessary is not a revolution, but a resolution to change that resolves to do things differently as a species, not just an industry. 

Pamani: Do you see opportunities for collaboration across different levels of production? 

Nichelson: We’ve been doing presentations at textile exchanges and with some of the biggest companies in our space about a new way of looking at sustainability and collaboration. We are raising the bar. What we need to be striving for is fixing things — that’s regeneration, that’s true circular.

We’re in this incredible moment, this inflection point for humanity, and constructive interference is what’s going to save us. We need it right now on a global basis. Are we going to come out of this into the real hunger games, or are we going to come out of this into a world ready to transform and willing to collaborate?

I can tell you that we at Circular Systems are working night and day to do our part to make that collaboration a reality, and we invite everybody else to join us. 

The above Q&A is an edited excerpt from the Bard MBA’s June 5 The Impact Report podcast. The Impact Report brings together students and faculty in Bard’s MBA in Sustainability program with leaders in business, sustainability and social entrepreneurship.

One novel spin on emerging hydrogen fuel options is “clean hydrogen” made from trash. 

Early pioneers of these hydrogen-from-waste technologies such as Ways2H, SGH2 Energy (SGH2) and Standard Hydrogen say not only are they making carbon-free, energy-rich fuel, their approaches also will divert mountains of trash from landfills and waterways, cutting greenhouse gas emissions.  

Green hydrogen — made by splitting water’s hydrogen and oxygen using electricity produced by renewable sources — is a small fish in the “energies pond.” Today, more than 95 percent of hydrogen is fossil-based and does not rely on renewables. Other technologies are in the mix, such as battery electric vehicles.

Hydrogen from waste is an even smaller fish than hydrogen from renewable energy. There are only a few waste-to-hydrogen projects, most which are in early stages and relatively small scale.

Still, there is potential for clean — low- or zero-carbon — hydrogen to take off, energy experts believe. It is energy-efficient, abundant and an environmentally friendly alternative to natural gas. Clean hydrogen could cut greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel by up to 34 percent, reported Bloomberg New Energy Finance. 

Deployed at scale, hydrogen from all sources could account for almost 20 percent of energy consumed by 2050, projects the Hydrogen Council. The annual demand could reach 19,120,458,891 tons by then, representing a tenfold increase from 2015 to 2050. 

When we began marketing our services, we expected most of the interest to center around our hydrogen production capabilities, but most inquiries have centered around waste consumption.

Looking specifically at hydrogen from renewable energy, Bloomberg calculates that if the cost for the technology to produce it continues its current downward curve, renewable hydrogen could be competitive with natural gas in several countries before 2050. And it could be cheaper than producing hydrogen from natural gas. Combined with a push for decarbonization, these economics could drive demand, project energy experts. 

A few tech companies are working to grow clean hydrogen in Europe and Asia and, lately, California. As the state weighs hydrogen as a possible path to its goal of carbon neutrality by midcentury, California’s policy makers are following emerging research, including a recent report from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory looking specifically at converting hydrogen from waste. It concluded this approach could be a cost-effective way to actually achieve negative emissions.

One company hoping to capitalize is Ways2H, which has a thermal process to convert municipal solid waste, medical waste, plastics and sewage sludge into renewable hydrogen. With four pilots under its belt, the company soon plans to launch a commercial project in Tokyo. It will start by making transportation fuel from wastewater sludge, then add plastics, according to the company. 

Later this year, the developer intends to build a plant in California to make hydrogen from waste for transportation fuel or for the power grid; it is negotiating with a healthcare provider to supply the trash. The plan is to build more plants in California and other U.S. locations in 2021.

Above photo courtesy of Ways2H

Ways2H CEO Jean-Louis Kindler believes he’s found a promising niche. “As we see more hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, beginning with public transportation applications … that are happening worldwide, and as more utilities adopt hydrogen as a power generation fuel, producing renewable hydrogen from waste will be an important source of supply to meet growing clean hydrogen demand,” he said. 

Is this the best second life for trash? Energy Transitions Commission, a global coalition of leaders across the energy landscape, is exploring low-carbon energy systems — including different ways to make hydrogen. The commission’s stance is that leveraging biomass to make hydrogen fuel is not putting waste as feedstock to its best use.

“We try to understand bioresource demand and to prioritize its use, using it as a resource where there are no other low-carbon options. There are other ways to make hydrogen. Meanwhile, there are applications with few low-carbon options that need the biomass more, such as biofuels for aviation,” said Meera Atreya, Energy Transitions Commission Bioeconomy lead.

That hasn’t dissuaded Ways2H and others from forging ahead. 

SGH2, for example, is producing hydrogen from mixed paper, which is fed into a gasifier that operates at very high heat generated by oxygen and plasma torches. The heat breaks down waste’s hydrocarbons into a synthetic gas; hydrogen is then separated and purified to 99.9999 percent.  

Its first plant will be able to generate 3,800 tons of green hydrogen a year from waste supplied by the city of Lancaster in California, which will co-own the facility according to a memorandum of understanding, according to the SGH2 web site.

The image above describes SGH2’s process.

SGH2 is negotiating with fueling stations interested in the Lancaster plant’s output. SGH2 CEO Robert Do, whose background is in physics, medicine and business, can’t name companies yet but said, “We have also had enormous interest from other buyers in California and globally. We are in talks with utilities, cement companies, and hydrogen bus manufacturers, among others.” 

A preliminary lifecycle analysis indicates that for every ton of hydrogen produced, SGH2’s process displaces 13 to 19 tons more CO2 than processes using electrolysis to split water’s hydrogen and oxygen. Do said his production costs are lower, averaging $2 per kg. 

“We can do it cheaper because our fuel is free, in exchange for offering disposal services at no cost to generators. And we can run the plant year-round while electrolysis depends on availability of solar and wind,” he said.

A 2020 Hydrogen Council report states that renewable hydrogen produced via electrolysis is about $6/kg hydrogen; although costs have been declining, and it projects they will continue to drop. 

Another pioneer in the waste-to-hydrogen movement is Standard Hydrogen Company, which is converting waste to hydrogen sulfide, then splitting it into hydrogen and sulfur to make fuel from the hydrogen. Like SGH2, the company says its process is cheaper than electrolysis because it is less energy-intensive and involves no water.

Standard Hydrogen CEO Alan Mintzer hopes to close on his first joint venture this summer with a consortium of North American utilities and multinational corporations that will provide feedstock and purchase the hydrogen. He is targeting pricing of $4/kg wholesale and $5/kg retail.  

“When we began marketing our services, we expected most of the interest to center around our hydrogen production capabilities, but most inquiries have centered around waste consumption. Not only will we clean the landfills and plastic and tire dumps, but our process provides an incentive to go to the floating garbage islands out in the oceans, and convert them into hydrogen,” Mintzer said. 

The California Energy Commission (CEC) and other agencies in that state have funded research on hydrogen transportation fuel, including potentially sourced from waste. 

“As the state moves to deep decarbonization, we’re exploring all options — including hydrogen as a clean energy carrier — in order to identify the most cost-effective pathways to reduce carbon emissions and protect public health,” says Laurie ten Hope, deputy director for Energy Research and Development at the California Energy Commission. 

Technology & Investment Solutions is among those doing research for California. Its project is in collaboration with the University of Southern California (USC) and entails converting organic waste to biogas through anaerobic digestion and uses USC’s catalytic reformer to convert the methane to hydrogen for potential use as vehicle fuel. 

Still, the process of making hydrogen fuel from any source has a way to go before it has firm footing, even in a state committed to decarbonization. 

While California is mandated to bring 100 hydrogen refueling stations on line by 2025, and is looking to add more, it currently has just over 6,000 hydrogen vehicles on the road, compared to nearly 700,000 electric vehicles, noted a CEC spokeswoman. She added, “So while the state has invested in hydrogen technologies, today there is far less adoption of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles than electric ones.”

Through their growing pains, developers working on hydrogen from waste are onto something, speculated Keith D. Patch, an energy and technology consultant. Not only are other clean technologies such as electrolysis expensive, they require enormous energy and don’t address the waste problem that waste conversion technologies could, he points out. But what are the hurdles? 

“The biggest barrier has been overly optimistic predictions by waste conversion companies, primarily around technical maturity and commercial economics. But once commercial readiness is validated by robust subscale testing, the industry should be primed for takeoff,” Patch said.