Lesson 2 - Environmental Sustainability
In this lesson we will discuss key ways to understand and improve the sustainability of brewery operations. This will include understanding the global context for sustainability, the key environmental sustainability impacts of producing beer and opportunities for improving the sustainability of beer and brewing operations.
Circular Economy
At this stage, you may be eager to get back to the brewery and start saving the world with beer. But before we explore some of the more practical ways we can act, we need to consider the concepts of the circular economy.
Fundamentally the circular economy aims to move our economies from the current take-make-waste extractive model to a circular economy where resources stay in the system, wastes are designed out, and economic activity is decoupled from the consumption of finite resources.
Circular economy is based on three principles:
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Design out waste and pollution
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Keep products and materials in use
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Regenerate natural systems
Here is a video that helps explain circular economy:
While circular economy is a big concept, it acts as a useful mindset we can take to solving sustainability challenges and finding innovation opportunities. There are some interesting and practical examples of it providing opportunities for innovation in brewing.
Figure: Opportunities for beer in the circular economy – some old and some new
Anywhere resources are being degraded or lost is an opportunity for innovation. We will look at other opportunities for circular thinking in the co-products section coming up later.
Time to make changes
We have learnt that some significant environmental issues are affecting our societies that as brewers we can work to improve. The rest of this lesson will look at some of the opportunities available to do this in the brewery.