Top Photo: Generate Upcycle’s Cayuga Digester in Auburn, New York. Photo courtesy Generate Upcycle

Last month, BioCycle queried leaders across the organics recycling industry about what they see unfolding in 2026. Bill Caesar, president of Generate Upcycle, was among those responding. He provided insights on valuing renewable natural gas (RNG) that we saved for this separate post in BioCycle.

The question posed to Caesar was: What innovation, whether technical, operational, or business-model driven, do you believe will meaningfully change how organics are collected, processed, or valued in 2026? Here’s his response:

“One innovation that might meaningfully change the organics waste management business would be a shift to valuing RNG (e.g. from landfill gas vs. dairy manure derived vs. food waste derived) based on the cost of carbon abatement.  If regulators and buyers compared types of RNG based on costs of carbon abatement (i.e. how cost effective is it at reducing GHG emissions) instead of cost per MMBTU, society would get the biggest climate bang for its buck.  For example, while dairy-based RNG sites tend to have very low Carbon Intensity (CI) scores, the cost of a unit of abated carbon for a dairy site’s RNG is often higher than the cost of a unit of abated carbon for a well-run food waste AD. 

“There are some buyers of RNG who are agnostic as to the RNG they buy (one renewable molecule is the same as another and price determines who they contract with). These customers tend to buy landfill gas, a product that abates the least amount of carbon of the three primary RNG sources (dairy, food waste, landfill). If one of the reasons to produce and consume renewable energy is to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, shouldn’t the price of the renewable energy reflect the carbon abatement potential of the product?”

Caesar added that the single biggest infrastructure bottleneck for organics recycling in North America is the number of operating anaerobic digestion sites capable of processing food waste.  “While a small handful of sites have been constructed (or rebuilt/expanded) in the last couple of years, there are opportunities for many more food waste ADs,” explains Caesar.  “To see a significant increase in the number of sites we need a few operational and market conditions met. First, the sites already operating or coming online need to meet operational and financial expectations. Second, the ‘voluntary market’ for RNG must remain attractive, and landfill disposal costs would need to continue to increase making food waste ADs a more attractive option for organic waste generators.  Finally, a bonus condition would be to have access to relatively inexpensive capital to facilitate additional investment.”