Beer and Bikes, Worms and Windmills
Here at the Sierra Club, we've long felt that the key to effective organizing was good beer. Well, one key anyway. So, it's with some measure of satisfaction that I found the new New Belgium Brewery website. Called Follow Your Folly, it celebrates nuttiness and neat ideas -- recycling, composting, bicycling, beer drinking, etc. -- in such a way that even the most determined teetotaler will enjoy it. Seriously: No dour preaching here, just wacky good times from the Fat Tire folks. Cheers y'all!
17 Comments:
How did a manufacturer of a non-nutricious, highly processed agricultural product packaged in a disposable glass bottle become an icon of sustainability? Part of it is the constant use of misleading statements such as "The entire operation is powered by wind." The rest was simply a world class greenwashing campaign. The vast majority of the resources required to make New Belgium's product go into the disposable bottle. Contrast this with the options European customers have and you realize what a sham the New Belgium myth is. Want a "green" beer? Drink a budwieser from a can and then recycle the can. A-Busch manufactures their product with less energy and wasted water than NB. Blog posts like this make me wonder if the Sierra Club, or anybody else, really understands what is contributing to climate change and resource depletion. You just lap up the whole greenwashed image without asking any questions. Is NB co-opting popular culture and preying on consumers fears to sell their product? For more details about NB's greenwashing email sutherix@yahoo.com
If you would prefer that New Belgium just stop gooning us with how green they are, give them a call 1 888 622 4044 or email nbb@newbelgium.com
Well a fat tire from a keg in your local pub (walk please!) seems like a better alternative than bud from a can.
I say bring on the competition -- lets have a carbon impact statement on both beers. Even if Fat Tire loses, I'll know how much an impact drinking good beer has.
Beer non-nutritious? That's heresy.
And since when is aluminum a better product than glass? Aluminum smelting takes enormous energy. Recycling is key in either case.
For every 10% of recycled material used, the energy required to manufacture a glass bottle goes down only 2-3%. Most glass "recycling" programs only pay for themselves on the basis of the savings recouped by not burying them in landfills. In many cases, the glass collected in curbside recyling programs is crushed and used as a topping layer to save dirt in the landfill. Aluminum cans require less energy as a packaging material when raw buaxite is used and far, far less energy to recylce than any other beverage packaging material. That is why a thriving industry is built around recycling aluminum cans. In this case the economics mirror the energy use. Beer in cans is cheaper than bottles even though it is a much more complicated manufacturing practice. Returnable bottles are somewhere in the vicinity of recycled aluminum cans on an energy basis, but can be much better is some situations. All this said, the original poster asks a very meaningful question: How can a company that packages its product in 12 oz disposables be considered green?
for that matter, how can anyone reading any of this on their computer (which will never be recycled and is unlikely to be disposed of safely) be in a position to say what and what isn't 'green.'?
12 oz beer bottles seem relatively benign in the scheme of things.
Computer parts can be recycled and reused. And there are requests to computer industry to please make computer parts out of recycled and/or recyclable materials.
One article about recycling computers, with related links:
http://compreviews.about.com/od/general/a/PCRecycling.htm
Bay Area computer recycling:
http://www.crc.org/
-----
We should all write our vendors / manufacturers and let them know this is an important consideration when making a computer purchase: is it recyclable?
Wow, for a light-hearted post, this sure caught some flak. Intrigued, I googled Eric Sutherland and New Belgium. It turns out Sutherland is an ex-employee. As he mentions in his comment here, the substance of his complaint against his former employer appears to center on the claim by the brewery that it is 100 percent wind-powered. Well, unless the wind blows 100 percent of the time through Fort Collins, that is certainly not the case in any literal sense. And, anyway, as he points out, they use natural gas in brewing. That too makes sense -- you don't get thermal energy from windmills. As for the 'disposable' bottle, well, it's also a 'recyclable' one. In the end, the criticisms aren't entirely baseless; at the same time, however, they do seem a little off-base, ... if you know what I mean.
For more on this tempest in a beer vat see this article in the Fort Collins Weekly.
Great posts on this blog entry. Tom is right, the greenest beer you can drink is the one you walked to a pub to drink. But imagine if every pint glass was thrown into the dustbin after one use. That is very similar to what is going on with bottled beer. Rather than addressing this issue, New Belgium has been gooning us with statements such as "the entire operation is powered by wind" and, my favorite, "New Belgium has tapped into the big winds of Wyoming as their sole source of energy".
In fact, New Belgium uses natural gas for approximately 40% of their on site energy budget. I do not like being lied to by anyone trying to sell me something. Most of all I do not like to be lied to about the environmental benefits of a particular product.
New Belgium's greenwashing has been so persuasive that hard core environazis have adamently defended the company until the facts were put on the table. But find out for yourself, call New Belgium and ask where the wind power comes from. Right now, 80% of the "wind power" that is purchased by the utility supplying Fort Collins and New Belgium comes from Renewable Energy Credits with an uncertain pedigree.
Pat, if you want less than lighthearted reading you should google sutherix and new belgium instead of Eric Sutherland. The guy has been completely off his rocker in more ways than merely online in his years of hate mongering this company. Off base doesn't even come close. The more I look into what he is doing and why it just gets more and more interesting, and also leaves me with a very uneasy feeling. Since taking an interest in this story after the FC Weekly article, I have started asking people around Fort Collins about him and his local activities. Tracking his event activities that he posted about on the FC Weekly site, his Earth Day 2006 appearance seems to be a pretty good one in particular. From what I hear from some of the volunteers there is that he blew up nicely in a fit of rage. I understand that people were afraid he would turn violent. I hope that journalists who report on him in the future will look into his past and seemingly obsessive and possibly violent nature toward New Belgium. Someone has to stand up and cry foul when the numbers just aren't adding up about his claims toward a company that from what I have seen over the years of living here, tries to do good at pretty much every turn. I've never seen any evidence for any of Eric's claims that I have read in researching his habits after the FC Weekly article.
Here are a few of Eric's claims I have amassed, some fom his posts here. There are many more out there. All of which Eric is unable to produce any evidence for. If you ask for it, he'll back pedal and simply make another claim, or attack outright with some sort of character slight.
"New Belgium claims their entire operation is powered by wind" - Eric Sutherland
"The vast majority of the resources required to make New Belgium's product go into the disposable bottle" - Eric Sutherland
"New Belgium is a sham and myth" - Eric Sutherland
"Want a "green" beer? Drink a budwieser from a can and then recycle the can" - Eric Sutherland
"A-Busch manufactures their product with less energy and wasted water than NB" - Eric Sutherland
"New Belgium claims they have tapped into the big winds of Wyoming as their sole source of energy" - Eric Sutherland
"In a pattern of behavior resembling the Bush administrations aproach to going to war (with us or against us) the company refuses any validation of their claims" - Eric Sutherland, on Wikipedia April 2006
"If you would like evidence that NB falsifies information it provides to the public I would be happy to provide it. If you want proof that they have no intention of being completely wind powered, I can provide that to you as well". - Eric Sutherland, on Wikipedia April 2006 - Eric never provided ANY evidence of course.
"What's next for you, defending Shell Oil in the Niger Delta? Newmont Mining in South East Asia and Indonesia?" - Eric Sutherland
to the editors of Wikipedia, April 2006 ***Note the character slight here when he doesn't get his way.
Here's the response from the Wikipedia editors, noting that Eric Sutherland had repeatedly violated Wikipedia rules, and also noting that they had toured the brewery themselves twice and seen equipment. They also noted that they thought he was trying to
DEMONIZE the company.
"If you and other editors consider information directly from a company to be insufficient verification (even with a qualifier such as "NB's promotional materials state that..."), then I have no problem removing the information altogether. So far I have seen no
verification at all for your claims that they are maliciously lying to the public, either." - Wiki editors
"In particular, putting unverified, controverial claims about cover-ups and lies in an article, thus demonizing the company, is a violation of WP:NPOV, as I have stated several times." - Wiki editors
"I have actually toured the NB brewery twice and seen some of the equipment they have installed to make the operation more energy efficient". - Wiki editors
Maybe Eric could answer some questions for me and everyone else.
1. Why are you no longer employed at New Belgium?
2. What was your last day of employment for New Belgium?
3. Were you a part of the wind program that the employees of New Belgium chose to take part in?
4. Are you an employee of Anheuser Busch or any other brewery?
5. What happened at your "FC Utility board meeting" from the FC Weekly article? They have not reported any followup.
6. Why are you completely obsessed with New Belgium? Don't give me some kind of mish mash answer like: "I hate being lied to about someone trying to sell me something". Everyone can tell that you feel wronged in some way to take such an extensive amount of time to bash a company that has such a good reputation in our local community. Are we residents all completely naive and hoodwinked by this "world class greenwashing campaign"? Are we all just susceptible to their high energy transmissions of "pseustainability" and you are not?
7. What are you doing for sustainability in your daily life that causes New Belgium to be such an "affront" to you.
8. What is your plan in detail about a returnable bottle system that you claim to have developed? How did you lobby Congress and
the State of Colorado legislature to get the ball rolling?
9. What public events do you plan to be at in the future?
I have lived in Colorado for over 30 years, 14 of those in Fort Collins, owning my own business. In my experience New Belgium has proven over and over to be the real thing. The value they add to the FC community is immeasurable in my opinion in multiple facets of life here.
Despite their admirable commitment to a smaller footprint, they have been modest in their approach and language overall in my opinion. Straight up, they 'walk what they talk' for the most part and can prove it. Unlike Mr. Sutherland, who has yet to tell us anything about his savvy sustainable approach to everything.
Of course, like every person and every company, New Belgium isn't perfect and semantically they need to address the wind issue, but that's all it is, a matter of semantics. The way renewable energy is classified and spoken about is not standardized and thus it is somewhat of a gray area. I think that overall because New Belgium has touted its commitment to wind, more companies and numerous people have gained interest in it and have started to support it (a net positive if you ask me).
Companies like this should be (and do) receive awards for what they do right, not blasted by bored ex-employees with a personal beef for what they COULD be doing right.
Eric, maybe you've had a few too many 'green' bud lights eh buddy? When you have something positive to give to this forum please speak up, otherwise please shut up so people doing good can continue to do such. I enjoy my way of life here in Fort Collins and in some ways I have New Belgium to thank for that. If you don't like their company then don't drink their beer. I cant imagine you are the kind of person who likes beer anyway, or anything other than your own personal agenda for that matter.
One sure way to resolve this: Yours truly will have to take an extended brewery tour to investigate matters. Dirty work but somebody has to do it.
Not much of a die-hard environmentalist, or one to debate what is good about, say, using reusable bottle versus a recyclable one, I am more intrigued by the human aspects of this issue. What peaks my curiousity is why good-intentioned Mr. Sutherland has a mission on cleaning up New Belgium's business pratices. Out of all the craft beer companies that don't uses returnable bottles...why New Beligum? Why not go after Odells Brewery which is smaller and easier to implement progressive measures? Budweiser must make NB's production seem like small potatoes. Wouldn't they be a better target for making major change? Get AB on board and then then returnable would be a feasible option for all. Why New Belgium?
Here's my stab at it. Bare with me.
I think Mr Sutherland spends a good part of his energy trying to improve New Belgium's operation because he deeply loves what New Belgium represents. He may have problems with certain aspects of their operation, but on the whole I bet he spiritually connects with what NB is doing to redesign the values of the corporate business structure. Sure they are still in the business of making money, but they are doing it in a better way than was previously the norm. It represents a step toward progress.
From the blog entries I see that he is a former employee, which must mean to some degree NB and Mr. Sutherland are of like mind. Moreover, Mr Sutherland's acceptance of coporate america and profit driven business are likewise implicit in his acceptance of a job for NB.
At the same time, any "former employee" I have ever encountered who dedicates any of his effort to tarnishing his former employer's image usually is "former" because either they were wronged and quit or because they were fired. Since I haven't heard word of bad social practices in Mr. Sutherland's list of complaints against NB I am going to assume that he was let go from New Belgium, a company that he probably envisioned could enable his idealistic and well meaning purpose in life.
Judging by his ernest efforts to purify their production and rewrite their terminology (I am sure Mr. Sutherland would rather see NB live up to the text rather than edit it down to match reality), I would guess that maybe he was pushing for progress too quickly or with too much force.
Perhaps the resulting tension eventually lead to him being dismissed which not only damaged his ego but cost New Belgium an employee with valuable, progressive ideals that could have been used to make it the environmental leader it sincerely would like to be. And now Eric is left in NB's wake, swimming around the ship, trying to contribute to it's heading by splashing water at its hull.
In the perfect world in my mind, egos would be put aside and Eric Sutherland and New Belgium Brewing Company would mend their relationship and NB would be the first brewery to institute his returnable bottle program, even if it means heavy financial losses - because those willing to loose it all have everything to gain
Al D. Nukdot
"New Belgium has tapped into the big winds of Wyoming as their sole source of energy to become the world's first wind powered brewery."
This appears on one of those clever postcard/coasters that the company distributes to bars. If you find one of these, (they have windmills supported by bottles on the front), please mail it to me at:
P.O. Box 842
Fort Collins, CO 80522
Write where and when you picked it up. I have been receiving these from around the Western United States for about a week now.
New Belgium has never gone a day without burning natural gas as a source of energy. Yet they claim that all their energy comes from wind.
Imagine a world where every commercial enterprise played fast and loose with the truth the way New Belgium has. This is not the type of world I want to live in. Consequently, I am doing what I am doing. If truth becomes the first casualty of our battle with climate change we will never win.
Since there has been some speculation on why I left New Belgium (almost 8 years ago), I will let you know that I quit. Good move for me. Two days ago, yet another ex-NB employee (also quit) aproached me to say he could not stand the dishonesty either.
Am I on some sort of personal vendetta? You choose. In the long run, the only question we should be asking is what can be done to address climate change and resource depletion. Will perpetually gooning each other about how green we all are get the job done? Hopefully this debate will take individuals closer to solutions.
I would like to see New Belgium foot the bill for implementing returnable bottles to the entire craft brew industry. In the long run it will be cheaper than paying off false advertising claims. It took public pressure via Fort Collins' independent media just to get the company to get the misleading statements off the company's website. What will it take to get them to stop serving up their product in a disposable bottle?
All the adorable Eric Sutherland critics might be advised to dig a little deeper. Either into me or the meaning of sustainability.
sutherix@yahoo.com
Someone's shit don't stink....
Rather than talking about the meaning of sustainability, which is highly debatable, let's talk about its unanimous objective - survival. In this case would one choose death by New Belgium or life with the Eric Sutherlands of the world? Neither seems too appealing; the former because one would be dead, and the latter because, well, she would likely wish for the fate of the former. The point of all this...a solution must promise a better world than the problem threatens to otherwise make it. For example, I could smash my teeth out with a hammer to rid myself of a cavity or I could just go to the dentist. Sure I am almost positive that the practice of modern dentristy is less sustainable than a hammer, but I am still going to choose it first. Only when hammers completely subdue all dentists will I start smashing in my grill, and in that case I'd like to consider myself in the majority. But who knows, perhaps hammers just need a more aggresive marketing strategy, that, or we should all begin brushing a bit better.
-Wanda
Hmm. Seems that for a lot of folks out there, decent beer trumps reality-based living at times. The facts seem to be:
a) New Belgium claims that 100% of their energy came from wind sources.
- This is clearly wrong. Nearly half of the energy for making the beer itself is from natural gas. The bottle, maybe 2 or 3 times that energy. If they double their capacity and sales, this inherently doubles the number of gas wells drilled on their behalf, the tons of CO2 emitted, etc. Seems simple to me on that basis alone. Any other argument and you get an honorary degree in marketing chutzpah. Welcome to Coors Country.
b) The wind power they "invest" in is in the form of renewable energy credits.
- These credits have no basis in real kilowatt capacity or any other tangible value. In fact, no part of the value of these credits has any value basis beyond feel-good guilt in the real energy economy. I can think of other examples of this brand of confusing fraud. The first is the "organic" label, which is being watered down to include allowances that many organic consumers simply don't want- changes that mean pesticide-laden and modified foods will bear the organic label. Yes, we will wonder what the semantics of organic are in the future, just as wind power has already been watered down.
The other thing that we should all wonder is do REC's really reduce greenhouse emissions? REC's actually resemble the indulgences sold by the catholic church- they are guilt certificates. They do NOTHING to reduce or change the energy use patterns of those who purchase them. This is all New Belgium is doing- use lots o' natural gas, claim the REC's absolves them, and claim you don't use 0% gas.
I like New Belgium for taking a stab at it. I like some of their beer on occasion. I don't blame them for getting pissed off at someone for obsessively pointing out a blunder in their marketing judgment just as they roll the windy rhetoric out of the reality-based sphere. I also like their sensitivity to the issue- if the other beer boys were as good as they were, we'd all be better off. If more businesses had half the savvy of New Belgium, there would be a wind of change. But let's face it- a lie is a lie, and 100% wind power does not equal 40% natural gas. That's all. They know this. The 4th grader down the street knows this too. Personally, I think NB can realize its errors in judgment and move forward to bring reality to their intent- buy real wind power. Use less gas. Evaluate how to evaluate bottles or whatever container they choose (remember the paper v plastic wars). Be greener- through efficiencies and through buying real thermal power purchased as real wind power from real wind turbines, not REC's. Let's face it- if the number of REC's sold doubled, it does nothing to reduce the gas that it was purchased to allegedly "offset".
Let's not herald the return of meaningless indulgences. Let's make real changes.
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