Natural Gas Vehicles for America (NGVAmerica) and Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas (RNG Coalition) data found that 53% of all on-road fuel used in natural gas vehicles in calendar year 2020 — 345 million gasoline gallon equivalent (GGE) of the 646 million GGE used — was renewable natural gas. RNG use as a transportation fuel grew 25% over 2019 volumes, increasing 267% over the last five years, according to their data.

RNG, captured above ground from anaerobic digestion of organic material in agricultural, wastewater, and food waste streams, and in landfill gas, can produce carbon-negative results when fueling on-road vehicles like short- and long-haul trucks, transit buses, and refuse and recycling collection vehicles. For example, the California Air Resources Board’s Q3 2020 data confirms that the energy weighted carbon intensity (CI) value of California’s RNG vehicle fuel portfolio in its Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) program is carbon negative and below zero at -17.95 gCO2e/MJ.

“RNG supply is growing,” noted Johannes Escudero, CEO of the RNG Coalition when releasing the 2020 data with NGVAmerica. “With 157 RNG production facilities transforming waste into fuel, and another 155 facilities on the way, we are increasingly able to affordably offer consumers the opportunity to decarbonize with RNG — the cleanest of any fuel available today.” RNG use as a motor fuel in 2020 displaced 3.5 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).