Chief Executive’s Monthly Update for July & August 2026
By Charlotte Morton OBE, Chief Executive of the World Biogas Association
It has been a busy summer at World Biogas Association (WBA) – but not in the way you might expect. Rather than winding down, we have focused on one task: working out where our industry needs to be in ten years’ time, and what role WBA should play in getting it there.
The starting point for this work remains the issue behind our mission. Every year, the world generates vast quantities of organic wastes and residues – estimated by WBA at around 105 billion tonnes – that are not yet recycled into their highest-value uses and instead can emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas warming the planet at speed. That is not a problem any single project, plant or country can solve on its own. It is a problem that only gets solved if the industry itself becomes dramatically easier to develop, finance, build and operate – everywhere, not just in markets that are already mature.
That is the thinking behind the Vision we have proposed for 2036: a world in which the full sustainable potential of biogas and anaerobic digestion is being realised, with WBA having helped build the global enabling infrastructure that made it possible. It is an ambitious vision, deliberately so – but it is also a disciplined one. A global association cannot deliver that potential itself. What we can do is build the frameworks, standards, knowledge and networks that let others deliver it faster and better. That is the leverage we are aiming for.
Over the summer, we have worked to translate that ambition into five areas where we believe WBA can add the most value: enabling markets, professionalising the industry, building knowledge and capability, unlocking investment, and strengthening the network of national and regional associations that make global frameworks work on the ground. A central vehicle for putting this strategy into practice is our #MakingBiogasHappen programme – our proposed framework for helping countries develop and implement effective Biogas Action Plans as quickly and professionally as possible, drawing together regulatory best practice, planning and permitting reform, standards and certification, skills and training, supply-chain and financial modelling, and data. Early work is already under way in markets including India and Brazil.
None of this is set in stone. We have deliberately developed the strategy as a draft so that it can now be tested, challenged and improved. This strategy has been developed precisely so that it can be tested, challenged and improved by some of the people who know this industry best – our Council and our members. That conversation gets under way shortly, with our next Council meeting on 8 September and a members’ survey going out this month – we want to hear your views: whether we have identified the right role for WBA, which elements would create the greatest value for you and the wider industry, where we should prioritise our resources, and where you would like to be involved.
We are also laying the groundwork for the Corporate Governance Review we announced at the start of the summer, to make sure WBA is fit for purpose for the decade ahead. An independent third party will lead a genuinely consultative process to assess what governance arrangements WBA needs for the next decade and recommend changes where they would make the association stronger and more effective – unless, of course, the review finds that what we have today is already perfect. I suspect there is always room for improvement. We hope you will engage with the review and help shape the future of your association.
I look forward to sharing more as the strategy and the governance review develop over the coming months, and to hearing your views along the way.
With best wishes,
Charlotte Morton OBE Chief Executive, World Biogas Association
