In celebration of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy’s 30th Anniversary, the Solutions for a Net-Zero Economy interview series promotes the leadership and innovation of clean energy businesses and the membership of BCSE. Featured speakers will showcase the broad range of technologies available to achieve sustainability objectives and a net zero economy.
By Tequila Smith, Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer, Covanta
Covanta is a leader in sustainable materials management providing environmental solutions to businesses and communities across North America. Through our vast network of facilities, state-of-the-art services and industry relationships, Covanta is a single-source partner in solving today’s most complex environmental challenges through innovative technologies like waste-to-energy.
Waste-to-Energy is a negative carbon energy source. Scientists and governments around the world, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the European Union, have consistently found that it reduces the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere when the impacts of landfill methane are considered.
In this way, Covanta’s sustainable waste solutions do more than keep trash out of landfills. Each year, our facilities produce enough energy to power one million homes. This is critical, base load energy that complements intermittent renewable energy sources like wind and solar, helping the world in its efforts to end its dependency on climate-damaging fossil fuels.
As the need to mitigate climate change becomes more imperative, we believe that advancing the circular economy and following the waste management hierarchy is of the upmost importance. That is, reducing, reusing, recycling, and recovering materials at their end of life, and landfilling as a last resort. This will be critical to our industry in the next few years as the world’s global waste problem becomes more prominent. We cannot simply rest on our laurels and need to continue to drive innovative, forward-thinking solutions that include our services and more.
Coalitions like the Business Council for Sustainable Energy are vital in this blueprint because they help bring us all together. Look around, we all represent different elements of the sustainable energy sector. We must work together to communicate to policymakers the importance of what we do for the future. BCSE is crucial in this goal and we thank them for their continued support.