Have a Beer, Support Sustainability

by Thomas Nailen E. Nailen Jr.

My hometown of Asheville, North Carolina is a city known for many things, not the least of which its beer.  Asheville was voted Beer City USA in 2012 for its fourth consecutive title because of the exceptional diversity of breweries in Asheville and just how good they are.  The title isn’t likely to go anywhere else soon because two of the big dogs in the craft-brewing game are moving in town: Sierra Nevada and New Belgium.  What is so impressive about these two breweries is not just that they are consistently ranked highly as top craft breweries in America (nos. 2 and 3 in the Brewers Association top 50), but that they display incredible commitment to environmental sustainability.

Sierra Nevada, located in Chico, CA, is a leader in solar technology implementation with over 10,000 photovoltaic cells in two fields producing 2,635,869 kWh—19% of the massive facility’s energy needs.  Two of the facility’s buildings, the daycare and rail facilities, run completely off solar energy produced by their solar fields.  Sierra Nevada’s total solar system is one of the largest privately owned solar systems in the country with plans on expansion in the near future.  Sierra Nevada produces another 48% of its total energy demand with 4 hydrogen fuel cells—the first system of its kind installed by an American Brewery.  Waste heat generated by the cells is recycled into the brewing process make the facility 15% more efficient.  From installing large windows to maximize natural light, to using rail for transportation when possible and biodiesel when not, to having an onsite water treatment facility, to capturing and recycling CO2 from the fermentation process, to maintaining an employee garden, Sierra Nevada’s sustainability efforts have proven the company to be as leader in the private sustainability field. Oh, and did I mention they make beer too?

Sierra Nevada’s rooftop solar fields

New Belgium is a similar craft brewery located in Fort Collins, CO with an equally impressive sustainability report.   New Belgium installed a 264,000 kWh photovoltaic system in 2010—the largest privately owned solar array in Colorado at the time providing 3% of their total energy needs.  They recycle methane produced during the water treatment process in their on site facility to a CHP engine that produces up to 15% of their electrical needs.  In 1999 New Belgium became the first brewery in America to purchase 100% of its electricity needs from wind when the employee-owners voted to purchase wind electricity from a Wyoming wind farm at 157% the price they were paying for fossil fuel based electricity.  Since their investment, the city of Fort Collins erected additional turbines specifically to supply energy to the brewery, becoming the first electric utility to offer wind power in the state.

These sustainability minded breweries are a perfect fit in Asheville.  Because of its location in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Asheville has always been sustainability minded, but recent initiatives have shown renewed effort including the 2.5% carbon footprint reduction last year (part of a yearly 2% reduction plan to reduce Asheville’s carbon footprint by 80% by 2050) and mandating that all new municipal buildings will be LEED  (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified.  Aside from its environmental efforts, Asheville is also called a beertopia, with the highest breweries per capita nationally, 4 beer festivals, countless beer tours, and its 4-year Beer City USA streak.

So what is it about mountain towns across the country, sustainability, and beer?  I don’t know.  Maybe it’s the creative and passionate people the mountains attract.  Maybe hiking through the natural mountain scenery evokes a passion for the as well as the deep thirst for a cold beer.  Maybe you can discuss it during one of Asheville’s weekly Asheville Green Drinks where Ashvillians and travelers gather downtown to share a drink while discussing environmental issues, hearing from top environmental speakers, and networking to see their green ideas come to life.  All I know is that the efforts from breweries like Sierra Nevada and New Belgium have shown the craft-brewing industry has separated itself as a leader in our nation’s green movement. These breweries are doing the little things like turning the lights off and the big things like investing in solar and wind energy at their own expense as well as harboring the environmental community with programs like New Belgium’s Team Wonderbike and Sierra Nevada’s Wild Rivers campaign.  These brewers have said yes to sustainability, given to the environmental community, and given environmentally aware consumers reason to sit back and support the craft-brewing industry with a nice tall brew.

9 Comments

  1. cmk26@duke.edu

    Thomas, I had no idea that Asheville was known for it’s breweries and sustainability. I think you present a very interesting topic, and I think it is really neat that these huge breweries are making such a valiant effort with green energy and sustainability. I would not expect “beer employees” to care so much about the environment, and the environmental community. I have never veen to Asheville, but with your detailed description it seems beautiful. I consider it to be very rare to find huge breweries in a beautiful, environmentally friendly area. I enjoyed your blog post very much!

  2. Sophie Vos

    This was a great topic to read about. With so much focus always being put on ‘dirty’ companies and catastrophic failures that result in environmental disastrous, it’s refreshing to hear a success story. I think that integrating environmental stewardship with well known industries that the public identifies with (food, drink, sports, social media, etc) could have an incredible impact on both the environment and the public’s perception of environmental issues. It is a well-known fact that the general public loves to mirror pop culture, so integrating an emphasis on renewable energy in other companies like Sierra Nevada may just be the solution the US has been looking for.

  3. dlr23@duke.edu

    This is an awesome article. I knew that Sierra Nevada was good on sustainability, but I hadn’t heard about New Belgium. It’s always good to hear about companies that are taking initiative, and I think it would be really interesting to study the business plans of producers like these that take on extra costs to ensure that they don’t compromise their values. At what stage of success or popularity can you afford to make investments like that? I’m personally very interested in how generally negative aspects of power generation, like heat waste, can be incorporated into other parts of production to increase efficiency. So, I especially enjoyed that aspect of the brewing process Sierra Nevada used. Beer brewing is such a water intensive process that it really makes a difference that they’re doing everything they can to be more sustainable. Because, as much as I want to save the environment, I can never pass up a good beer.

  4. Kerri Devine

    Thomas, I think it’s incredible that such niche markets are finding ways to incorporate sustainability into their business plans.

    I am always disappointed with the profile of Monday morning trash piles on the quad following the bacchanalian weekend adventures of our peers. Glass and aluminum bottles beer bottles tend to be the main culprit in those piles, seemingly unable to find their ways to recycling bins. Last year I served on a campus committee which desperately tried to mandate recycling bins be present at all fraternity and SLG parties; but in a bizarre turn of events we were told that recycling bins at parties would lead to more campus rapes and sexual assault (it’s a looong, frustrating explanation). If our campus of relatively educated and environmentally responsible citizens can’t bring itself to recycle beer bottles and cans regularly, then what do we expect from the rest of our nation?

    Despite this serious downstream lapse in life-cycle sustainability, it’s encouraging to see companies try to attack the problem at the source. I commend these companies and think they serve as wonderful poster-children for the entire industry!

  5. Michaela Foster

    It’s great to hear about companies that consider other priorities besides making profits when operating. Sierra Nevada and New Belgium, as Thomas has said, has made the commitment to do their part to protect the environment. This article did a great job showing how companies not directly related to issues of the environment are doing what they can to reduce their carbon footprint. These companies aren’t simply paying off-sets or turning off the lights at night, they’re supplying their needs with renewable energy, which goes to further increase demands for this technology and hopefully will result in widespread use of the technology.

    While companies like these offer hope that others will follow in making their businesses more environmentally-friendly, I’m still concerned that seeing these success stories will do little to influence the behavior of other companies unless using renewable energy becomes cheaper than using fossil fuels. How do we convince companies to abandon cheaper energy at the expense of profits to invest in the environment that is being trashed by the company right next door. We have a long way to go, but companies like Sierra Nevada and New Belgium are leading the way.

  6. Niara

    Having big companies really take the lead in sustainability and invest in green energy was once a far off dream for environmentalists. Now with programs such as LEED many companies have options and see the steps that they can take to reduce their carbon footprint. The fact that New Belgium willingly paid 157% more for wind energy is admirable and gracious. If each large company did one “green” thing who knows how much less carbon we would be producing. The idea of a company willingly going against elementary economics to support the environment is so paradoxical that shamefully I find myself questioning their motives. I wonder if it will come to a point—or if it has come to the point—when companies will participate in the environmental movement for the sake of “winning over” environmentally conscious consumers. Honestly, if economic benefits spur environmentally friendly actions, I would not be opposed at all.

  7. jd155@duke.edu

    Thanks for the great article Thomas! I had the chance to visit Asheville with my roommate who comes from the area and had some great beer there too. I recommend the Summerfest Lager from Sierra Nevada by the way. If you follow this link (http://www.sierranevada.com/environment/solar.html) you can see that they have an onsite real-time power generation dial showing the power from the solar cells, the fuel cells, and how much of their total consumption is produced onsite.

    Sierra Nevada is pursuing a really innovative and involved for energy and waste product capture and recycling. The waste water treatment produces and captures methane by anaerobic digestion. The rest of the water is used to clean trucks and and is recycled within the facility. The methane is used to fuel the boilers. Now, the brewery already recycles waste heat from boilers, steam generators, and the fuel cells for steam generation. The brewery is now pursuing using the methane from the waste water treatment as a source of hydrogen for the fuel cells. This brewery is using concepts from combined cycle and cogeneration power plants in more ways than most actual power plants use. It would be interesting to see how the actual returns and savings in the companies energy costs. This brewery is a leading example of how different solutions can and should be used in series and parallel to increase efficiency and sustainability.

  8. Vanessa

    I never thought that I would applaud a beer company for their efforts, and yet that is exactly what I am doing. I am really impressed by what I read in your blog, because I had no idea that Sierra Nevada and New Belgium were such strong supporters of the “green” initiative. I would expect this kind of behavior from other sorts of companies, but definitely not from breweries. However, they have shown that companies can do a lot more to minimize the impact on their environment. I was especially surprised/impressed to read that New Belgium receives 100% of its electricity needs solely from wind.

  9. Jacob Crabtree

    This is truly a fascinating post. I’m a self identified beer snob that takes pride in crushing those who confuse a lager for an ale, and I had literally no idea that Sierra Nevada and New Belgium were so committed to environmental sustainability and technological innovations. These companies are a very encouraging sign that being green is a viable business model. Green technologies will only achieve significant market penetration if it is economical. Both breweries produce high quality beers that are cheaper than comparable microbrews. This price difference is due to the increasing economies of scale in the brewing industry. The fact that these companies have adopted expensive green technologies, which raised their production costs, and have still maintained their competitive advantage demonstrates that companies can become responsible environmental citizens while remaining highly profitable. That deserves a toast. (I’d recommend Sierra Nevada’s Celebration Ale while it’s still out.)

Leave a Reply