Shearman & Sterling represented Vanguard Renewables, a BlackRock Real Assets portfolio company, in its partnership with global pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to decarbonize its research and manufacturing sites by the end of 2026 through the delivery of renewable natural gas (RNG).

Since 2014, Vanguard Renewables is the largest national leader in the development of organics-to-renewable energy projects to provide sustainable solutions to greenhouse gas emissions challenges by diverting food waste from landfills and sequestering on-farm emissions. In 2022, BlackRock partnered with Vanguard in an effort to deploy an estimated $2 billion over the next three to five years to build Vanguard’s  portfolio of 100-plus plants.

Beginning in June 2023, AstraZeneca,  will begin purchasing RNG with the aim that 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.

The transaction was announced on June 13 in a press release.

The Team