What I Learned At Biogas Americas

The American Biogas Council staff knows how to put on a welcoming, information-packed, and fun event every year—and they didn’t disappoint in 2025. However, part of the credit goes to the professionals attracted to the biogas industry, whose bottom line is more than just business development. They believe in doing good and doing well.

While I can’t say enough good things about the professionals and their trade association, I have some bones to pick with the industry's branding and the general inability of the companies that paid thousands of dollars for trade show booths to generate market differentiators that would help them gain a competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded market.

Twenty years ago, only a handful of American companies would've participated in a biogas conference like this, but thanks to California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard and the skyrocketing value of renewable natural gas from captured methane for transportation fleets and natural gas utilities trying to decarbonize, well over a thousand attendees sold solutions.

Surviving in a competitive landscape like this requires clearer branding and better market positioning. 

Biogas Is a Bad Name

When you hear ‘solar,’ you think of the sun or a solar panel. When you hear ‘wind energy,’ you think of a turbine. The term ‘biogas’ has no descriptive visual, which is why few people outside of the industry know what it is, which is unfortunate because the energy generated from decomposing agricultural, food, human, and landfill waste is better for the environment than any of the better-known sources of clean energy.

Biogas has been around for decades, so the branding horse has probably left the stable for good. Still, if I had a magic wand, I would rechristen the industry with a more positive, visually associated term. Granted, biogas doesn’t have the stigma of branding nightmares like Homer Simpson becoming the face of nuclear energy, but even in the case of nuclear energy, at least people know what it is. If you told most homeowners that biogas powered their furnaces, you’d most likely get a blank stare. 

Why is this so problematic? Because confusion breeds fear, especially in the energy industry. Opponents of the wind industry (funded by fossil fuel companies) created a whirlwind of trouble by making unfounded claims about birds, noise, and cancer that set the industry back years. Likewise, in the early years of dairy digesters, which collect methane from decaying cow manure, a few spills and engineering mishaps generated headlines that reverberated for decades. 

The good news is that because most people are unaware of biogas, the industry still has time to refresh the brand into something more compelling. 

Follow The Leader Is Bad Market Positioning

Of the 400 companies that hosted trade show booths, I could only find 3 or 4 with true unique value propositions. Every other company spent thousands of dollars trying to explain to its audience what it manufactured or what service it provided—and they all sounded alike.

In engineering, there’s a tendency to focus on what you make rather than the unique solution you provide for your customer. Statements like “We build digester tanks” or “We remove hydrogen sulfide” are not unique value propositions. They can be duplicated by dozens of different companies.

European companies or American companies that are subsidiaries of European companies are the worst offenders of bad marketing because they focus almost exclusively on the features of their products, which is the lowest rung of the marketing value chain.

Good marketing addresses a specific audience’s pain point. Better marketing makes your company the only one that can address that pain point. That’s what creates customer loyalty and brand value.

Companies With Unique Value Propositions

In the category of Best Brands, the winners at Biogas Americas were: