Crown Holdings’ North American plants completely using renewable energy

Yardley-based Crown Holdings, a packaging products company, recently announced its 14 beverage can plants in the United States and Canada are operating on renewable energy.

The company’s facilities in the United Kingdom already made the transition. A total of 27.5 percent of operations now use renewable electricity.

The company signed a 15-year wind power Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA) with Longroad Energy for the use of a Texas-based wind farm. In addition, the company committed to the RE100 initiative, which focuses on accelerating the transition to zero carbon grids at a global scale.

“This VPPA, which makes us the first in our industry to complete an energy transition for all U.S. and Canadian beverage can manufacturing facilities, is a major milestone on our journey to utilize 100 percent renewable electricity by 2050 and will play a critical role in reducing (greenhouse gas) emissions from our operations,” John Rost, Crown vice president of Global Sustainability and Regulatory Affairs, said. “Making a pledge to the RE100 initiative, setting science-based emission reduction targets, and now implementing wind power across our U.S. and Canadian beverage plants — these are all actions we view as critical for driving measurable progress against climate change for our planet.”

The VPPA will generate more than 440,000 megawatts of electricity.