Scottish beer brand and pub group, BrewDog, is committing to removing twice as much carbon from the air as they produce, with plans to be the first ever carbon negative beer brand. They will calculate and offset double the total carbon footprint of each individual employee through the use of a mobile app called Pawprint. Employees will use the app to log data relating to their lifestyle, such as their travel, bills and food consumption. BrewDog’s move to carbon negativity is part of their new sustainability programme called Make Earth Great Again worth £30million of investments.
They also plan to plant 1 million trees on their 2050-acre plot of wild land near Loch Lomond in Aberdeenshire to lock in carbon dioxide – a method known as ‘carbon sequestration’. The BrewDog Forest will also be home to a sustainable campsite where they will host public retreats and workshops.
Carbon neutrality, which is when as much carbon is removed from the air as is produced, is just not enough in the fight against climate change. According to James Watt and Martin Dickie, the co-founders of BrewDog, if businesses want to have a positive impact on the environment, they need to go carbon negative. James Watt has said “Huge change is needed right now, and we want to be a catalyst for that change in our industry and beyond. […] We are determined to rapidly and fundamentally change everything as we work hard to ensure we have a positive impact on the planet”.
