BrewDog Tomorrow: an indepth look.

We get asked a lot about the various sustainability initiatives we are undertaking as a company and whilst everything is laid out in our sustainability reports (available here: www.brewdog.com/uk/tomorrow ) ?I wanted to take a moment and answer some of the key questions and clear up any misconceptions people may have. A degree of scepticism is healthy here given the prevalence of green-washing however I wanted to make you all aware of the substance and scienece underneath our strategy here.

Here are some key building blocks of BrewDog Tomorrow:

Independent Scientific Advice

We are delighted to work with world leading sustainability expert Professor Mike Berners-Lee as our Lead Independent Scientific Advisor. Mike and his team have been integral to our sustainability project since day 1. All the numbers we release and our sustainability reports are checked and verified by Mike and his team, based on their analysis, from the data we provide. We have also built our entire strategy from reductions to removals and from forests to peatlands with Mike and the amazing people at Small World Consulting.?

Reductions In Emissions

Whilst removals and certain very high-quality offsets have value, the ultimate goal always has to be to reduce our environmental impact as much as possible in the first instance. Some people have pointed out that we may be too focussed on removing carbon from the air and not on reducing our own footprint. This is simply not true. Our priority is cutting our carbon, not just in our operations but in our supply chain where most of the emissions lie. The numbers below and the scale of our investments here are testament to this.

In terms of reducing our emissions, we are making significant investments to this end and we have made significant progress in reducing our impact. We were able to reduce our Scope 1 & Scope 2 carbon emissions by 34% in 2020 alone. And we are making great headway to reduce this further in 2021, including scope 3.

We are also making huge investments across our business to further reduce our emissions and we are working on an ambitious plan called ’24 to Zero’ which we first shared in 2020 which will see us look to reduce the carbon footprint of our HQ operations to zero:

·?????Our business is now fully wind-powered in the UK.

·?????Our spent malt (our biggest by-product) is now converted into green gas (biomethane) by an Anaerobic Digestor and this biomethane powers our brewing system.

·?????We have multiple electric delivery vehicles on the road.

·?????Our onsite bio-plant will be operational in January 2021 which will reduce our water consumption drastically and generate further bio-methane.

In terms of our scope 3 emissions, we have already made considerable reductions, and have many more actions under consideration and development. So far our actions include the following.

·?????We have sold our big bottling line and are replacing with a canning line (cans have a much lower environmental impact).

·?????We have planted our own on-site hop farm in America.

·?????We are committed to keeping business travel to less than 70% of our 2019 levels per HL.

·?????We are working on a C02 recovery system in Scotland.

·?????We are installing a new brewhouse which is far more energy efficient.

All in we are currently investing over ￡40m to reduce the carbon footprint of our business.

Our View on Offsets & Removals

We call ourselves the world’s first carbon negative brewery because we remove twice as much carbon from the air as we emit every single year, including our scope 3 emissions. We only make this claim because we are at the same time cutting our emissions as fast as we can, and at a rate which we believe is more than consistent with limiting global temperature change to 1.5 degrees. Working with partners to offset our emissions is a stop gap for us and we have diligently selected these partners with the help of Professor Mike Berners Lee and his team to ensure we only work with the highest quality of partners and offsets including The Nature Conservancy Of Canada who is our main partner here.

The Lost Forest

We believe that our carbon is our problem: we want to take ownership of it and fix it ourselves. So, we bought 9,500 acres in the Scottish Highlands where we are creating The Lost Forest. We have now started work on restoring huge areas of degraded peatlands (peatland restoration is a very effective form of carbon sequestration) and we will soon start planting millions of trees to create a native, bio-diverse broadleaf woodland. Both of these initiatives help the UK meets its Sixth Carbon Budget and targets as recommended by the Climate Change Committee. The Lost Forest is a ￡25m investment that will help us take carbon dioxide out of our atmosphere demonstrating both permanence and additionality as well as conserve and restore a beautiful part of Scotland creating much needed biodiverse natural habits too, for future generations

Transparency

We also believe that a very high level of transparency is important here. Every single environmental claim we make is backed up in an audited report where we share all of the numbers, calculations and details. We see very few companies sharing details in this way but ultimately we feel this transparent approach is key. Our scope 3 carbon is assessed our lead independent scientific advisor Professor Mike Berners-Lee and his team at Small World Consulting.

Onward

I wanted to be as transparent as possible here to help other businesses on their own sustainability journeys. Through working with established experts over the last few years we have learned so much and that knowledge has a huge impact on the sustainability strategy we have built.

We believe progressive businesses have to take the lead when it comes to fighting climate change and we are determined to do all we can to help save our home planet.

Hold Fast,

James