Last year New Belgium Brewing Company’s Fat Tyre became America’s first certified carbon neutral beer, the Kirin owned brewery has also committed to being carbon neutral across all their operations by 2030.
The Colorado (US) based brewer has now released a detailed “how-to” toolkit to share how they are ringing the changes and to help other craft breweries monitor their carbon emissions and ultimately make the move to carbon neutrality themselves.
They explain on their recently launched website www.drinksustainably.com how climate change is impacting communities and all levels of the food supply chain and the importance of businesses, no matter how small or big, changing the way they manufacture.
The toolkit also includes a tool to help brewers calculate their carbon emmissions
In their toolkit, which is free to download from their Drink Sustainably site, New Belgium outline a clear, easy to follow 6 step path to carbon neutrality:
- Measure your carbon footprint
- Set a strong carbon neutral goal
- Reduce your GHG emissions (greenhouse gasses)
- Buy carbon offsets
- Advocate for strong climate policy
- Earn carbon neutral certification.
Each step is explained in detail in the guide and includes pro tips and suggested costs and time budget allocations.
The toolkit also includes a Excel based Accounting Tool designed to provide small and medium-sized brewers with a self-service method to estimate their greenhouse gas emissions footprint.
This move follows other major breweries pushing for carbon neutrality across their operations.
Recently Scottish brewers Brewdog announced they had brought a 2,000+ acre tract of land in Scotland they intended to re-forest as part of their efforts to combat climate change and mega-brewer Budweiser APAC recently announced they had taken a $500M sustainability linked loan (SSL) to fund it’s brewery expansions in the region while meeting environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) goals.
