🛒 The Check-Out: Ben Woodliffe, DEYA
+ 5 cool climate events + what's in our basket - Fodder & Farms, ReFED methane primers and more...
Happy Thursday! Welcome to The Check-Out - your weekly dose of climate x consumer goods inspiration, and your discovery box of products and events the Following the Footprints team are loving this week. It’s great to have you here.
We’re known to have a beady eye. For cool brands, inspiring stories, sustainability strategies that really should be shared. We also keep an eye on our wonderful subscribers (you), and one glorious day we spotted Ben Woodliffe from DEYA. It’s safe to say we’re DEYA stans in this house, so he graciously accepted a LinkedIn DM and hey…the rest is history.
After Ruby chats to Ben, we’ll share what the Following the Footprints team has loved and consumed this week and 5 Climate x Consumer Goods events coming up. Let’s dig in…
> Brand Spotlight
🎙️ Behind the Brand: 6 questions with Ben Woodliffe, Taproom Supervisor and Sustainability Lead at DEYA
👉 Hey Ben, first up, we’d love the non-LinkedIn lowdown on who you are and DEYA!
My name’s Ben and I’m the Sustainability Lead at DEYA. We're an independent brewery based in Cheltenham striving to make world class beer. I started working in our Taproom back in 2019 when we were operating out of our original smaller site. When COVID hit and our taproom closed, I was able to pick up work around the brewery until our main Taproom was able to open again. I’m now working in our new venue that opened across the road, called The Swamp. Alongside this I have spent more and more time focussing on sustainability at DEYA and how we can improve as a company. I now lead the strategy!
We are a family-run business and take a holistic approach to everything we do, trying to be the best we can be in the best way possible. Sustainability is a massive part of that. Brewing itself is such a resource heavy industry and we know that, so we’re trying to be as transparent as possible and work hard to achieve honest change.
👉 An important part of your journey has been calculating your carbon footprint. How has this been a part of your strategy?
A big part of where this all began for us was measuring our carbon footprint. It's so important to know where your greenhouse gas emission hot spots are and where you should therefore spend more time working to bring them down. We worked with Zevero to achieve this and gain an insight to our impact as a business, from cradle to grave.
Each month we track everything from the paper tape we buy for our packaging, to the hops that go into each drop of beer, to how the customer buys that beer.
Off the back of this we’re super proud to be measuring our Product Standard footprint as well. This is the specific carbon footprint of our beer per L, and we advertise this on our can labels. I think it's so important we get talking about this subject, which is why I love the fact our customers can pick up a can of our beer, see its carbon footprint clearly on the label and read more about where that number comes from. All while enjoying a cold one with a mate.
👉 Are there any other sustainability achievements you’re particularly proud of at DEYA?
As with the rest of the company, approach is from a multi-faceted perspective. You can’t only look at one thing, and one thing only. That’s why we only use organic and/or recycled organic cotton or polyester in our merchandise (and only use water-based and end of run inks to minimise our impact there too). We have also been increasing our use of regenerative and low intervention malt in our beers to lower barley emissions. It's a hot topic at the moment with malt suppliers and growers which is really exciting!
We have also had a CO2 capture and recovery system installed in our brewery. This captures all CO2 released during fermentation and allows us to use this to carbonate beer and move beer from tank to tank. Not only reducing CO2e emissions, but also bringing our brewery one step closer to being a more circular production system.
👉 Ok, magic wand time; if we could grant you three wishes for the drinks industry, what would they be?
Firstly, for large-scale energy efficiency improvements to be made more accessible for smaller-scale businesses. At the moment there is some great potential out there in terms of energy-saving kit, but unfortunately some of the tech just isn't feasible for smaller businesses. It’ll get there, but will likely take time.
Secondly, for there to be more transparency and less greenwashing around the subject of sustainability. Do good for the right reasons!
Finally, and going off the second wish, for this topic among customers to be more active. I’d love to see more and more drinks companies measuring their carbon footprint and talking about it openly with their customers, and customers asking them about it too!
👉 How do YOU keep up with regulation, industry innovations, climate news and other brands?
There can be a lot going on, so I think it’s important to give yourself time to digest what the news, LinkedIn, and other companies and groups are talking about. One step at a time!
👉 Finally - we’d love some recommendations; one climate-related resource, one person to follow online and one consumer brand that’s killing it!
A great climate-related resource is The Grumpy Optimist on LinkedIn. George gives a great digest on what's going on in the world and focuses on the positive when there can be a lot of doom and gloom out there!
Raechel Kelly is a great person to follow online, especially if you’re local to Gloucestershire. She’s doing a lot of good in the sustainability space including linking like-minded people and businesses together, running climate and youth groups, and being a host for People Planet Pint events.
A consumer brand that’s killing it, is for sure The Boutique Distillery. These guys have sustainability at the core of everything they do whilst making some banging rums and gins at the same time.
A huge thanks to Ben for jumping into the hot seat today!
> In Our Basket
🔎 What we loved and consumed this week:
From Laura in Manchester: I'm starting to think ahead to Christmas and have come across a gift that is both a physical present and an experience! A seasonal subscription to Adventurous Ink (kickstart-ed here) which includes two books, with the aim to grow your appreciation for the outdoors so that you are more inspired to help protect it!
From Leone in London: 25% of today’s warming is caused by methane emissions, produced by various human activities - wasting food being a key one. In fact, in 2022, 14% of total US methane emissions was from food waste alone. I wanted to learn more about curbing food waste, and this primer by ReFED was the perfect place to start. High chance it will get you eating that spinach at the bottom of your veg drawer.
From Indira in Glasgow: I am not much of a cook, but lately have been cooking a lot, inspired by the Fodder + Farm’s spices. Based in Scotland, they create these amazing flavors seasonally in small batches by hand at their farm. Make sure you grab some soon, as they’re not available for long! My favorites are the Green Tomato Salsa and Spicy Disco Mix.
> Monthly Events Roundup!
📆 5 Consumer Goods x Climate Events:
Browse 20+ upcoming consumer x climate events, and submit yours.
26th October - How Businesses and Finance can use biodiversity data to inform decision making and align with the KMGBF
Organisers: IBAT Alliance
Location: COP16, Columbia
28th-31st October - Textile Exchange Conference 2024
Organisers: Textile Exchange
Location: Pasadena, USA
29th October - Pasta & PCFs workshop
Organisers: Altruistiq
Location: London, UK
29th October - Fortnum's x Kew Gardens: Fungi & the Environment
Organisers: Fortnum & Mason, Kew Gardens
Location: London, UK
31st October - Creepin It Real with Patagonia UWS
Organisers: Patagonia
Location: New York, USA
That’s it for today!
Know a brand we should spotlight next? Let Leone know!
Have links that can make the team learn or laugh? Share them with us, we might just share them in The Check-Out next week.
Hungry for more? You’ll see us on Monday! That’s when we suit up and get serious, digging into a topic that is guaranteed to make you look smart at standup.
Much love,
Team FTF
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