Thursday’s post about New Belgium and the triple bottom line provided background information on the brewery’s sustainability efforts. Today’s post focuses on their energy policy.
As mentioned in an earlier post, New Belgium Brewery has an anaerobic digestor on their property. This piece of equipment cleanses water and produces methane as a by-product, which they then burn to generate energy. Approximately 12-15% of the electricity consumed by the brewery is derived from this process. Their on-site water processing facility also decreases overall energy consumption. Ms. Wallace stated that the payback for the digestor was a mere 18 months. In addition to the methane-to energy-system, New Belgium has plans to install a 200 kilowatt photovoltaic system (pv) over the next few years. This pv project is part of their collaboration in Fort ZED. Ms. Wallace stressed the collaborative effort and nature of sustainability, which is readily apparent in Fort ZED.
Producing clean energy on their grounds represents one of the foundations of New Belgium’s “energy philosophy”. The brewery worked with Judy Dorsey from the Brendle Group to create a pyramidal diagram (similar to the food pyramid, and the one seen in this post) to represent their approach to energy. At the bottom of the pyramid is the low-hanging fruit of energy conservation. This forms the foundation of the pyramid and is the most significant and easily addressed portion of their approach. Next comes on-site energy generation. By producing the energy themselves, they are aware of its origins and also reduce the amount of energy dissipated to the atmosphere (as explained by the 2nd law of thermodynamics) when traveling via transmission lines. Next on the pyramid – second from the top – comes purchasing green power. New Belgium’s employees, who own the company, voted more than 10 years ago to purchase all of their electricity from a wind farm in Medicine Bow, Wyoming, just across the state border. The last option, and the highest on the pyramid, is Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and offsets. These two are seen as the last resort, as they do not address the root of the issue. Offsets and RECs only suffice when other reductions, clean energy purchases, and on-site generation cannot cover the entire energy portfolio.
As part of their move toward zero energy, the brewery has installed light tubes (skylight like apparatuses) and tried to increase natural light in their buildings. Similar technology made the final four options of the building episode in the Science Channel’s Ecopolis series. Natural light, whether through light tubes or other products, helps fight the artificial environment found in many building interiors.
[image source: Brendle Group]
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