Sustainable Brewing: A Study of Sustainable Brewing Practices
Effiok Inyang Jnr
My two passions are saving the planet and brewing beer! I can describe myself as a beer aficionado. For my capstone project, I decided to investigate what local breweries in Alberta are doing to produce beer with less energy, water, and to recover CO2. The objective of the capstone project was to analyse the environmental and social sustainability practices of local breweries in Alberta. The report shared insights on key performance indicators and best practices of sustainable brewing, based on a literature review, content analyses of archival reports, and interviews with ten local craft breweries across Alberta. It developed a benchmark among craft breweries in Alberta to determine their existing sustainable practices and what they can do as an industry to improve. Findings identified several sustainability indicators: water, energy, solid waste, carbon use, and social aspects.
A United Nations study has projected the global population will increase from over 7 billion today to approximately 9 billion by 2050. Managing the relationship between water, food, and energy is becoming increasingly critical. The recent growth within the craft brewing industry has not only increased employment and economic growth in Alberta but has also raised social and environmental concerns.
Craft brewers should care about the long-term health of their communities and the natural resources that make their livelihood possible. They should do their part by decreasing the natural resources they consume and the waste they generate in their breweries, so as to preserve the ability of future generations to brew delicious, abundant, and affordable beer. Becoming more sustainable means becoming more efficient in brewing with the lowest possible social and environmental footprint while maintaining profitability. Craft breweries’ natural resource consumption and usage determine their environmental footprint. Measurement of their natural resource consumption is the first step to managing its reduction. By craft breweries measuring their water and energy usage, they can track their progress over the years.
A total of ten craft breweries were interviewed. Job titles from participants include the following: Owner, Co-founder, Production Manager, and Director of Brewery Operations. Out of the ten breweries interviewed, five breweries are located in Calgary, one brewery from Edmonton, one brewery from Lethbridge, one brewery from Canmore, one brewery from Lacombe, and one brewery from Turner Valley. Interviews were conducted either as an in-person site visit (visiting the brewery) or as an online video call (via Zoom). Semi-structured interviews were used as the ideal method to collect rich data from voluntary respondents during the research phase. There were four different categories of questions within the interview question template. The categories of questions were as follows:
i. Size of firm
ii. Their view of Alberta craft brewery industry
iii. Existing sustainability management practices
iv. Future sustainability management practices.
Conclusions: Emerging knowledge from breweries
Excellent quality data was collected through interviews with the ten participating craft breweries.
Below are some of the emerging sustainable practices that craft breweries are engaged in.
Energy
Energy Efficiency: For electric lighting, most breweries have upgraded all their lighting to LED.
Green Energy: As a way of reducing their emissions footprint and support the growth of renewable energy, most breweries purchase their energy from a green energy provider like Bullfrog Power.
Heat Exchanger: Most participating craft breweries utilizes a heat exchanger to recover and recycle heat.
Water
Water-Saving Strategy: Most breweries focus on reducing direct water usage by reusing or recycling water, monitoring and measuring water usage, and fixing leaking faucets.
Clean-In-Place System (CIP): Most breweries use a CIP system, which is generally more efficient than manual cleaning. It reduces water consumption and a high level of automation is possible.
Solid Waste
Spent Grains: Virtually all breweries interviewed send their spent grains to local farmers to be used as animal feeds.
Recycling Program: Most breweries have an excellent recycling program. One of the breweries mentioned sending their empty grain bags to be recycled into tote or shopping bags. All these recycling programs increase waste diversion from landfills.
Carbon Use
Nitrogen Generator: One of the breweries has an onsite nitrogen generator. The nitrogen is used for purging tanks instead of CO2. This reduces truck deliveries of CO2to the facility and the associated environment and financial cost.
Social Sustainability
Alberta craft brewers display a remarkable level of interfirm cooperation and this creates a sense of solidarity among craft brewers in the region. There is also a close relationship between craft breweries and local businesses. From discussion with craft brewers, most of their raw materials are sourced locally; this benefits local businesses. They also build relationships with local arts and food businesses. This partnership with local establishments foster sales for both businesses and provide jobs within the community.
The following important concepts and perceptions have emerged:
· Energy, water, solid waste, carbon use, and social aspects are important sustainability indicators.
· There is interest from craft breweries to become more sustainable.
· Craft breweries focus more on industry best practices than investing in technologies.
· There is significant room to improve sustainability practices.
· Most breweries could not afford capital intensive sustainable technologies like CO2recovery systems and anaerobic digesters to treat wastewater
· Craft breweries are looking at investing in solar energy.
· There is comradery and collaboration among craft breweries and the local community.
This capstone project would not have been possible without the support of the ten craft breweries that shared best practices. Sharing sustainability best practices in the craft beer segment is an ongoing process, and I appreciate all participating breweries.
I also decided to take my love of good beer and put it online for people to enjoy by starting a social platform that shares the stories behind breweries, their beer, and the people who brew it. The name of the platform is Beer Sanctuary, below are links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beersanctuary
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beer_sanctuary/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beer_sanctuary
Website: [***Under construction***] https://beersanctuary.wordpress.com/contact/