​Sustainability Questions to Ask About Your Brewery

Insight and sharing of that info from breweries is what we try to accomplish each day here at The Brewer Magazine. With more than 7,000 spread out across the country and more opening each day, it can be difficult to think of all the little things, especially outside of dollars and cents.

Take a moment to focus on some other aspects as well. Ask yourself some questions about sustainability that we have gathered in previous interviews with breweries across the United States.

Where does ​your brewery source its ingredients from?

Have you looked past your vendor? What sort of farms are the barley being grown? Are they malting their own product? How many years has the hop farm run those hops and how do they check for bugs or disease? If they can’t answer, that doesn’t seem to be a great sign. Just saying ‘Montana,’ ‘Canada,’ or ‘North Carolina’ doesn’t flesh out the story. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, dig into the answer if need be. Perhaps your brewery can even partner with local farms to source ingredients at a similar cost. At the same time, those same farms can help in upcycling organic byproducts like spent grain and wastewater.

What can you do to become a B Corp Certified brewery?

Having the status as a Certified B Corp recognizes a brewery’s longstanding commitment to doing what’s right for the planet along with taking care of your employees and giving back to causes you and your brewery’s staff believe in and hold dearest through your brewery’s culture.

Are your ingredients Non-GMO Verified?

A consumer, and you and your brewing team, have a right to know what is going into your product. Does this matter to you? How can you confirm this?

Do you care about Climate Change?​

Does your brewery support any environmental non-profits, charities or organizations? ​This can be a cornerstone that not only helps tell your story, but can be a slight business driver. Breweries like North Coast have worked with farms to help ​sequester carbon while others work at finding new ways to use their spent grain. It’s all ways to help reduce a brewery’s carbon footprint.

​What have your employees done to help​?

Do you listen to your employees? What sort of ideas have they shared? In a brewery with an ESOP value attached to their name, employees are the drivers as they are also owners. Take time to listen. Employees have come up with many ideas, like ride-sharing programs, carpooling and teaming with public transport to help reduce carbon emissions.

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