According to the company’s website press release on November 28, 2022, ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President and COO; hereinafter "ITOCHU") announced that it has invested to Impact Bioenergy (headquartered in Washington State, USA; Tim Tiscornia, President; hereinafter "Impact Bioenergy"), a U.S. based startup that manufactures and sells equipment to produce biogas from food waste through anaerobic digestion.
In the United States, regulations on landfill waste are being tightened for the benefit of environmental protection, and there is a growing awareness around the need to reduce waste. In California, municipalities are imposing regulations around organic waste disposal and recycling. In August 2022, the federal government passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a bill aimed at expanding subsidies for renewable energy projects. As a result, attention is increasingly being focused on solutions that reduce and reuse food waste.
Impact Bioenergy is a Seattle-based startup established in 2013 that develops, manufactures, and sells small- and medium-sized equipment that generates biogas through anaerobic methane fermentation of food and other organic waste. The company has proprietary equipment design, equipment manufacturing technology, equipment operation know-how, etc., and has accumulated more than 200,000 hours of operating hours of their units in place at university and corporate campuses. The equipment is small and medium-sized, and easy to install. The biogas produced can be used for electricity and fuel, and the platform also reduces costs related to waste disposal and transportation and draws carbon down from the environment.
ITOCHU expects that demand for Impact Bioenergy's equipment will increase as regulations on food waste tighten in the United States. ITOCHU aims to support the expansion of Impact Bioenergy’s marketing and manufacturing systems, and in the medium to long term, ITOCHU aims to support overseas expansion by leveraging ITOCHU's overseas network.
In August 2021, ITOCHU had invested in Raven SR Inc. (hereinafter "Raven"), a U.S. company that has technology to produce renewable hydrogen from municipal solid waste. ITOCHU is focusing on the energy utilization of garbage resources though its investment on Raven and several investments on EfW (Energy from Waste) in Europe, Middle East and Asia. ITOCHU will continue to contribute to the realization of a recycling-oriented low-carbon society and a sustainable society through our investment in Impact Bioenergy.
