By Lena Babeva Coradini

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. was honored for its green practices by the Business Environmental Resource Center for such efforts as employee bike racks and parking, lockers and showers, electric vehicle charging station, and low-emission company vehicles. Employees at Sierra Nevada also have a fleet of bicycles for their use and get incentives for car pooling and using mass transit.

And speaking of great breweries doing good things: New Belgium Brewing is also making the news for their green activities. The brewery is working hard to become more sustainable:

Our brewery is actually not sustainable in the sense that we consume more resources than we are able to replenish, but we are working hard to become more sustainable every day. For most companies to reach true sustainability, however, large shifts would have to occur in this country’s infrastructure. I don’t think a 100% sustainable brewery exists, but many of us are doing everything we can to improve our practices and advocate for structural/societal shifts that would create a business environment more conducive to sustainable brewing. Please visit our Sustainability Report to find out what we are doing to serve our triple bottom line.

What’s your biggest sustainability challenge?
I believe three of the largest issues that brewing, as an industry, faces are:

1.Maintaining availability and affordability of clean, abundant water.

2. Reducing the impact of single-use packaging that is the norm United States.

3.Improving the sustainability of agricultural practices used to grow barley and hops. We need smarter farming practices that eliminate net greenhouse gas emissions entirely (which is possible!) while preserving biodiversity and ecosystem health.

Any new sustainability projects in the pipeline that have you excited?
Right now New Belgium is installing a smart grid! When trying to solve the environmental and economic issues surrounding energy, we believe conservation is the cheapest and most sustainable first step. The most sustainable watt is the one never produced. By bringing the technology we have in computers & cell phones to the grid, we can program appliances and equipment to shut off when the power company reaches peak production. Rather than the power company turning on an extra engine, they send us a signal that triggers our smart grid program to shut down certain areas of the brewery that will not be negatively affected by a few minutes without power. If we all learn to time our energy use more wisely, we do not have to build more power plants.

‘Save the Colorado’ is another exciting project we recently launched to fund water stewardship efforts on the Colorado River (which supplies half of the water coming to Fort Collins). This voice of advocacy for water stewardship is incorporated into our Skinny Dip Beer ad campaign in an effort we call "Advercacy" (Advertising + Advocacy). New Belgium has committed to donating $300,000 over the next three years to non-profit organizations working to study and repair the Colorado River. Several other companies have joined us in this effort and you can too by visiting www.savethecolorado.org.

My favorite quote from this article is: "New Belgium’s pipe dream is to make the most delicious and creative beer in a way that honors & preserves nature (the source of our beer) and creates plenty of opportunity to enjoy life in the process."