M. Douglas Dagan, Senior VP of Renewable Energy at Suburban Propane

“I came into the propane sector after more than two decades working across science, policy, law and finance on clean energy,” said M. Douglas Dagan (Doug), senior vice president of renewable energy at Suburban Propane L.P. Advising public and private entities on how to accelerate practical clean energy solutions with a focus on clean energy policy, finance and project development were key roles at that point in his career.

“That work led naturally to helping companies turn policy ambition into executable projects, which is what ultimately brought me to Suburban Propane in 2021 to build and lead its dedicated renewable energy platform,” Doug said. Now, as senior vice president of renewable energy, Doug continues to translate the company’s nearly 100-year distributed energy legacy into a diversified, lower-carbon future.

Doug’s nomination from Suburban Propane explained that he’s helping to redefine the future of the propane industry through his leadership. “Charged with leading the company’s growing renewable energy portfolio, he has successfully positioned a nearly century-old, traditional energy provider at the forefront of lower-carbon innovation,” the nomination said.

“The propane industry sits at the intersection of legacy infrastructure and emerging low-carbon technologies,” Doug added. “It has a lot to gain from both fresh and seasoned perspectives.”

Doug believes industry veterans understand system reliability, safety and customer expectations in a way that’s hard to replicate, while newer voices often bring cross sector experience in biofuels, hydrogen, renewable natural gas (RNG) and data-driven analytics that challenge fuel industries to rethink what’s possible.

“When you put those perspectives in the same room, you get innovations like renewable propane that use existing appliances and distribution networks, or RNG projects that leverage proven operations but apply new financing and regulatory structures,” Doug said.

A major initiative has been converting agricultural waste into renewable energy. “Our RNG portfolio focuses on anaerobic digestion of agricultural waste — primarily dairy manure and organic residuals — to produce biogas that is upgraded into pipeline-quality renewable natural gas,” Doug said. “In practice, manure and other organics are collected and fed into sealed digesters where microbes convert volatile solids into biogas; that biogas is then cleaned of impurities and conditioned into RNG that can displace fossil natural gas while also generating valuable environmental credits.

“These projects benefit the industry and farmers simultaneously,” Doug continued. “They reduce methane emissions, create a new revenue stream from gas and credits, improve nutrient management through digestate and provide a scalable, drop-in renewable molecule that can support both utility and downstream propane-linked applications.

“Beyond RNG, we’re advancing renewable propane and lower-carbon intensity propane blends that can function as drop-in fuels in existing propane infrastructure, as well as exploring hydrogen pathways that leverage propane and RNG as feedstocks and carriers,” Doug said. “Our commercial propane renewable dimethyl ether (rDME) blend — the first and, so far, only product of its kind in North America — shows how we can lower carbon intensity while still using the same trucks, tanks and burners.”

“My ideal future is one where the propane industry is recognized as a leading platform for low-carbon molecules and distributed resilience,” Doug concluded. He sees a future where traditional propane, renewable propane, rDME, RNG and hydrogen coexist in a portfolio that serves customers reliably with progressively lower carbon intensity. “I envision propane companies as bioeconomy and clean fuel hubs, partnering with farmers, technology providers and communities to turn waste into energy and to deliver sophisticated, data-informed solutions rather than single-product commodity sales.”