Twenty-four craft beer breweries on Tuesday pledged to do their part to confront the growing global warming crisis by reducing carbon emissions and prioritizing sustainable practices, joining a chorus of industries calling for swift climate action.
The breweries—which hail from all corners of the U.S., from Maine to Hawaii, and as far away as Ireland—added their names to the Climate Declaration, which was launched in 2013 by sustainability advocacy organization Ceres and its business network, Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP).
“We cannot risk our kids’ futures on the false hope that the vast majority of scientists are wrong. But just as America rose to the great challenges of the past and came out stronger than ever, we have to confront this challenge, and we have to win,” the Declaration reads.
In addition to signing the multi-industry pledge, the brewing companies have signed their own Brewery Climate Declaration to call attention to the specific risks of climate change on the $246 billion industry.
In a statement announcing the pledge, the companies note that the beer industry faces multiple threats from climate change impacts. “Warmer temperatures and extreme weather events are harming the production of hops,” which in turn has driven up the demand and thus the price of hops by more than 250 percent in the last decade. Further, clean water resources are becoming increasingly scarce in the drought-plagued West.
Many of the companies that have signed on to the pledge have already begun to implement more sustainable practices.
Since 2013, Allagash Brewing Company in Portland, Maine has worked with local farms to use their spent grain and yeast by-products as animal feed or fertilizer. Oregon’s Deschutes Brewery partnered with Oregon State University to become the first craft brewery to operate by Global Reporting Initiative sustainability standards, making their carbon footprint better-monitored and publicly available. And Odell Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado uses 100 percent renewable energy, 5 percent of which is provided from 11,000 square feet of on-site solar panels.
Under the Brewery Climate Pledge, the companies aim to: measure their greenhouse gas emissions, use more renewable energy, reduce energy use by recycling steam, capture methane emissions, reduce their transportation footprints, and become LEED certified.
The breweries who signed the pledge: Aeronaut Brewing Company (Mass.), The Alchemist (Vt.), Allagash Brewing Company (Maine), Aspen Brewing Company (Colo.), Brewery Vivant (Mich.), Buoy Beer Company (Ore.), Chuckanut Brewery and Kitchen (Wash.), Deschutes Brewery (Ore.), Fort George Brewery and Public House (Ore.), Fremont Brewing Company (Wash.), Georgetown Brewing Co. (Wash.), Guinness (Ireland), Hopworks Urban Brewery (Ore.), Kona Brewing Company (Hawaii), New Belgium Brewing (Colo.), Ninkasi Brewing Company (Ore.), Odell Brewing (Colo.), Redhook Brewery (Wash., N.H.), Rockford Brewing Company (Mich.), Smuttynose Brewing Company (N.H.), Snake River Brewing Co. (Wyo.), Standing Stone Brewing Co. (Ore.), Wet Dog Café & Brewery (Ore.), Widmer Brothers Brewing (Ore.).
