Pioneering beer company confirms it has secured 'carbon negative' status as it steps up efforts to slash emissions and plant new Brewdog forest
Leading beer company Brewdog hailed Saturday as "the best day in [the company's] history" as it announced it has been officially certified as 'carbon negative' and unveiled plans to plant a new "Brewdog Forest" in the Scottish Highlands.
The self-styled punk brewery published a wide-ranging new sustainability plan under the banner 'Make Earth Great Again', detailing how it is now carbon offsetting double the carbon emissions from its operations, energy use, and supply chain in partnership with a range of certified carbon offset projects.
The partnerships are described as an interim move as the company accelerates plans to develop its own forest and undertake peatland restoration work on 2,050 acres of grazing land that it has purchased in the Scottish Highlands just north of Loch Lomond.
So happy that @BrewDog is now carbon negative.
— James Watt (@BrewDogJames) August 22, 2020
This means we take twice the carbon out of the air each year that we emit. And we are going to do it with our own 2,000 acre BrewDog Forest!
We worked on this plan with @MikeBernersLee https://t.co/5qm79ADYx5#BrewDogTomorrow pic.twitter.com/haxOJqJM9G
The report also highlights the company's new 24 month plan to slash its carbon footprint and become a zero waste organisation through its sourcing of 100 per cent wind power, the production of biomethane using by-products from its breweries, and plans to install carbon capture technologies and switch to a 100 per cent electric fleet.
Unveiling the report on Twitter, company co-founder James Watt said he was "so happy that Brewdog is now carbon negative".
"This means we take twice the carbon out of the air each year that we emit," he added. "And we are going to do it with our own 2,000 acre BrewDog Forest."
The forest will feature 1,500 acres of broadleaf native woodlands and an ecosystem that complies with the Woodland Carbon Code accreditation program.
The company said it would plant over a million trees that would sequester carbon, as well as promote biodiversity, provide natural flood attenuation, and drive rural economic development.
It will also dedicate 550 acres of the purchased land to peatland restoration, working with the Peatland Code to ensure promised emissions savings are delivered.
In the meantime, partnerships with The Woodland Trust, Carbon Neutral, Ribble Rivers Trust, and the Nature Conservancy of Canada will provide the company independently accredited carbon offsets as it works to secure certification for its own project.
The plan has been developed with support from leading academic and carbon footprinting expert Mike Berners-Lee, who in a foreword to the report praised the company for providing "some of the leadership the world so badly needs".
"They are raising the bar for the business world," he said. "Both in their strong carbon cutting action and their straight talking. And this is just the start. Going forwards they won't be perfect. They'll make mistakes and they'll need to be honest about them. They won't need to beat themselves up but they mustn't let themselves off the hook either. The message they send to the rest of the business world is that if they can say it like it is, everyone else had better do likewise."
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