Do you like beer? If you enjoy a cold one from time to time, you should know that water scarcity is a potent threat to your future supply.  It takes nearly 20 gallons of water to produce a single pint of beer. Fortunately, many beer producers either already have a water conservation strategy, or are working on one.

MillerCoors (a partnership of the U.S. operations of SABMiller and MolsonCoors) launched a website that does the predictable by touting its water conservation efforts and the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. But unlike many other online efforts, MillerCoors’ new site also was designed to draw consumers into the conservation movement. Great Beer Great Responsibility, allows visitors to “participate in three areas of focus–environmental sustainability, alcohol responsibility, and people and communities.”

“The new website gives us a unique opportunity to connect with consumers who enjoy our great beers, and would like to learn more about the responsibility behind those brands,” said Cornell Boggs, chief responsibility and ethics officer for MillerCoors, in the press release announcing the new site. “In addition, the site invites consumers to share in our action, by pledging to conserve water, plan ahead for a safe ride and contribute ideas that represent how big change starts with small steps.”

Of particular interest to us is the fact that MillerCoors is encouraging visitors to pledge to conserve water, and is tracking the water saved.

The average American uses more than 100 gallons of water each day.  Can you try to use less?  We hope so.  After all, water is the most important ingredient in beer, and at MillerCoors, we’re always trying to make more beer by using less water.  Please join us…. Together, we can make a difference.

It’s easy for visitors to pledge to save water by choosing from a list of easy things to do, such as:

• Turn off the water while brushing your teeth
• Turn off the hose between rinses  when washing your car
• Shorten showers by a minute or two
• Run the washing machine only when it’s full

Every American can adopt those small changes and others to conserve water. We are pleased MillerCoors is encouraging its consumers to take action, discuss water consumption, and share their personal conservation efforts. We all have a stake in ensuring that there is plenty of water for generations to come.

After all, if there is no water, there can be no beer.

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In a follow-up to our prior post on Wal-Mart’s sustainability index, we are taking a look at the 15 questions Wal-Mart will ask its suppliers.

When Wal-Mart announced their Sustainability Index, they outlined the implementation as a three-part process. The initial phase consists of Wal-Mart surveying its suppliers around the globe, and asking them to answer 15 questions in four categories: energy and climate, material efficiency, natural resources, and people and community. Today we are discussing the first two categories and how AirDye® technology can give suppliers the best chance for an excellent score on the sustainability index.

Looking first at “energy and climate” policies, Wal-Mart would like to know:

1. Have you measured your corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions?
2. Have you opted to report your greenhouse gas emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)?
3. What is your total annual greenhouse gas emissions reported in the most recent year measured?
4. Have you set publicly available greenhouse gas reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?

It is easy to set an internal goal of reducing GHG emissions and energy use. The difficult part is modifying operations to achieve those goals. For suppliers of textiles to Wal-Mart, using AirDye technology to dye and decorate could reduce their GHG emissions by up to 84 percent, not to mention this process uses up to 87 percent less energy. A simple, cost effective solution with significant and measurable results.

Under the “material efficiency” category, the questions are:

1. If measured, please report the total amount of solid waste generated from the facilities that produce your product(s) for Walmart for the most recent year measured.
2. Have you set publicly available solid waste reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?
3. If measured, please report total water use from facilities that produce your product(s) for Walmart for the most recent year measured.
4. Have you set publicly available water use reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?

Using AirDye also helps in this category, because it not only uses no water at the point of coloration, it reduces both working loss and excess inventory. AirDye simply uses air to dye and decorate synthetic fabric, bypassing the liquid state of dye altogether. Instead of mixing dye with water and placing it on the surface of a fabric, our process transforms dye from a solid to a gas, eliminating the liquid state and therefore the need for water.Traditional processes can see working loss rates of 10-15 percent, but with AirDye, working loss rates are around one percent. Additionally, AirDye improves material utilization by allowing manufacturers to run smaller lots. Without the imposed overages of traditional methods, the supply chain is automatically more sustainable. Suppliers can also carry less inventory, as AirDye allows for easy and fast reordering of an exact product amount.

Another significant advantage of  this revolutionary process is that the local water supplies are not polluted due to dyeing and solid waste is drastically reduced. Thus eliminating a major sources of pollution in the textile industry, and allowing manufacturing to take place in more strategic locations.

These questions are aimed at creating transparency and measurable practices, helping Wal-Mart compare companies, and better manage their suppliers. The answers will help quantify where companies currently stand. If your company is a Wal-Mart vendor and you’re using AirDye you can feel confident that you are leading the pack with sustainable production, backed by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) research, with quantifiable, verifiable benefits.

Lately, it seems a variety of companies are really beginning to take notice of water scarcity. Take Molson Coors for example. Last week they announced a strategic partnership with Circle of Blue, an international network focused on global water issues, in an effort to protect global freshwater supplies. Their first initiative is to survey  public concern and awareness of water issues in 25 nations. Molson Coors will join Circle of Blue in presenting the results at World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden, August 18th.

President and CEO of Molson Coors, Peter Swinburn believes

Safeguarding supplies of fresh water is essential to the sustainability of the Molson Coors business. Strategically, it is important to us to learn how policy makers, government leaders, and our own customers and employees view this precious resource, and to develop new ideas about how to engage them in water issues in their communities. By supporting Circle of Blue’s critical reporting and research efforts we will be able to provide leadership and valuable insights about attitudes around the world toward retaining and restoring the world’s critical fresh water supplies.

Molson Coors is part of the United Nations CEO Water Mandate which aims to gather business leaders around addressing the emerging global water crisis. Other participants include Coca-Cola, Heineken, Nestlé S.A., and PepsiCo, Inc.  As part of disclosing their efforts towards water sustainability in their operations and supply chain, Molson Coors has devised water metrics, which they publish in a sustainability report. They are also a member of the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) , which is an organization of global beverage companies working to advance water conservation and resource preservation. Molson Coors is doing more than talk about water conservation. Every one of their breweries achieved their 2008 goal of a four percent overall water reduction, a definite step in the right direction towards being good stewards of our natural resources.

As a company dedicated to water conservation, we look forward to seeing the results of the survey, as well as the promised substantive changes to how Molson Coors does business.

In Boulder, Colorado, the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) is vocally and actively supporting legislation that aims to help their industry. The legislation, titled the U.S. OUTDOOR Act was introduced simultaneously in the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 3168) and the U.S. Senate (S. 1439). The bill is the result of a two year collaboration between outdoor apparel manufacturers, the U.S. textile industry, and leaders in Congress.

The legislation, sponsored by Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), has several components, including equalizing tariffs for outdoor apparel to that of other goods in order to make outdoor apparel and products more afforable. But the aspect of the bill that is of particular interest to us is the creation of the Sustainable Textile and Apparel Research (STAR) fund. According to Rep. Blumenauer’s website:

The fund will make grants available to certain non-profit organizations to advance U.S. competitiveness in lean manufacturing technologies and supply chain analysis. The STAR Fund grants, made available through a competitive process administered by the Department of Commerce, will help the global textile and apparel industry minimize energy and water use, reduce waste and global warming emissions, and incorporate sustainable practices into a product’s entire life cycle.

We support any legislation that promotes a greener textile industry. We believe that the best way to keep industry jobs in America is to transition the industry to cleaner, greener, sustainable production. There is ample room for advancements, as companies like Columbia Sportswear and others are demonstrating. Using technologies such as AirDye® can help in this process, and we encourage those seeking to reduce waste, water, and emissions to look not only at our solution, but at any and all that will help.

Photo credit: Cranker / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Tomorrow at their corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, Wal-Mart is expected to announce the year’s most important news for consumer product manufacturers. They will be unveiling a “sustainability index” to measure the environmental impact of every product on the shelves. What’s more they will label products for consumers to read and compare. This could potentially transform retailing, as Wal-Mart is expected to require manufacturers to examine their supply chain, quantify their environmental impact, and compete for favorable treatment.

Wal-Mart plans on using the life cycle assessment methodology to measure the full environmental impact of the products it sells; meaning the product’s impact through manufacturing, use, and disposal. To accomplish this, Wal-Mart will ask its 60,000 plus suppliers to help, though this seems like a nice way of saying requirement. Wal-Mart and its suppliers will not be alone in this task.

Part of tomorrow’s announcement will include the unveiling of a Sustainability Consortium led by the University of Arkansas and Arizona State University, which will provide academic research and support to the effort. Several other institutions involved in the planning, but have yet to officially join the consortium include Duke, Stanford, Harvard, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Michigan.

Consumer-goods companies with household names such as Proctor & Gamble, General Mills, Unilever, and Tyson are also partners in the consortium, making this a serious and collective effort (though if this were an effort lead by Wal-Mart alone it would still be transformative). Some competing retailers have also been invited to join, including Costco, Kroger, and Target.

Wal-Mart may choose to measure a manufacturer’s sustainability in energy and greenhouse gas emissions, natural resources, materials, and most interestingly “people and communities.” For manufacturers this means knowing their supply chain inside and out, and understanding the origins of all inputs, including raw materials. This sustainability index could very well create traceable supply chains providing unheard of transparency, and that alone would be a tremendous achievement.

Had you asked me five years ago what I thought of Wal-Mart’s efforts toward sustainability, I would have told you that it was just green wash. Today I’m impressed, even astounded. They are using their industry might to create a race among manufacturers toward the most sustainable products and manufacturing methods. That’s nothing to sneeze at. Wal-Mart, which reportedly touches one third of the world’s manufacturing capacity, sees 92 percent of their environmental impact in their supply chain. To reduce their impact as part of their corporate sustainability goals, they’re looking at everything; the water and chemicals used to grow cotton in Turkey, product packaging, trucking fleets, store energy efficiency, and improved recycling. Tomorrow’s announcement should add “defining sustainable supply chain” to that list. We will keep you updated as this unfolds.