November 2010

Both sustainability and beer were critical aspects of our trip.  Sustainability is, after all, the professional reason for the trip, what we plan on doing with our careers now that we’ve returned.  Beer was a necessary and enjoyable diversion along the way.

In fact, I managed to sample 63 international brews from Efes in Turkey to Murray’s Whale Ale in Australia.  Many of them were cold, refreshing and quite nice, but some, like Sakkara Gold in Egypt, were quite bad.  I did manage to get pictures of many of them along the way.   The documentation of the labels alone is worthy of a presentation.  (BTW – if there are any companies out there looking to tap my expertise in this area I am happy to discuss!)

Before we dive into the recent opportunity I had to combine both sustainability and beer here in Philly, below is a slide show of the beers I had while traveling.  The “*” captions are rating system from *= “wow, I want my money back” to **** = “amazing, are you exporting to the US yet,  and if not do you want to?”

With that background, it should come as no surprise that when I found out that the Wharton Alumni Club of Philadelphia was hosting an event at Yards Brewery I was probably the first one to sign up.   In addition to having quite tasty beer, Yards is Pennsylvania’s first 100% wind-powered brewery.

My take away from the event, which included tastings and a brewery tour, is that Yards has implemented a laundry list of sustainability tactics including:

Bowling Alley Bar

• Bar tops are reclaimed bowling alley lanes.
• Floors are made from recycled concrete and coated in SoyCrete sustainable compound.
• All fixtures, furniture and equipment are reclaimed.
• T-shirts and hats are created from organic cotton.
• All glass and cardboard is recycled through the Pedal Co-Op.
• Grains are donated to local farms as feed.
• Yards cases are printed using 65% post-consumer recycled cardboard at a local SFI-certified manufacturer.

And while all of these tactical efforts are to be applauded, when asked about what their commitment to being a “lean, green, brewing machine” has done to help with their marketing or sales there was no clear answer.  What was offered up was that Tom Kehoe, the founder, is now able to speak to it in talks and meetings, as well as the staff promoting it on tours like the one I was on.  It is a shame in a way. If Yards is implementing a more comprehensive sustainability strategy there are significant opportunities to secure relevant certifications and awards such as ISO 14000 or LEED Certification for their newly constructed brewery, just to name a few.

Also, other than a small section on the website, buried on the “Tours” page, there is no proactive marketing of the efforts being undertaken.  More importantly, Yards is not necessarily benefiting from the costs being incurred to implement these tactical efforts.  One that I saw while on the tour was that Yards is using Organic Sugar as an ingredient, and while there is a significant price premium on this ingredient, there is no mention of its use in the beer or a larger commitment to the use of organic ingredients.

I am sure that some of Yards’ strategies result in reduced energy costs and that is a great initial motivation. But unless you have a strategy to capitalize of the investment in terms of differentiated marketing, new products or industry certifications or awards, it will remain a list of tactical feel-good efforts.  And unfortunately they will likely lose momentum, as there is no larger goal that the company appears to be striving towards.

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