Occasionally your business gets in a bit of a rut. New ideas might be hard to come by. Perhaps any new ideas that do come through just do not work. At these times an outsider, usually a consulting firm, comes in to help. Well, has your business ever tried crowdsource the problem?

 During the Great American Beer Fest two weeks ago, we attended an event hosted by Goose Island Beer Co. where they premiered their film "Grit & Grain." The film shares the story about how their well-known Bourbon County Stout is made - from the cutting down of white oak trees in the Ozarks to make the bourbon barrels all the way to the tasting the finished product.

Although not a significant amount of the story involves sustainability practices, the film does show two important aspects to the process:

• How the forests are properly managed by the forestry companies to keep the forest growing, not diminishing.
• The repurpose use of the bourbon barrels for beer. Bourbon barrels may only be used one time, according to the definition and practice of making bourbon. Bourbon County Stout adds a second-life for the barrels.

​Please check out our review of the event and movie on PorchDrinking.com.

To see the movie, Goose Island is releasing the film in nine chapters every Friday on YouTube. The first two chapters are out now and catch watch in the player below.

Next week will be our one-year anniversary! We have been lucky enough to help several great businesses this past year and we are very excited for the future as we are developing new ways for businesses to become better corporate citizens.

At this time though, we wanted to share all 24 articles we have shared over the past year. We are very proud to share these with you and hope you can use them as resources. We've categorized them for you in three columns below: 

• CSR 101 - defining CSR, why it's important, and how to make it a part of your strategy.
  
• CSR Analysis - sharing of existing initiatives, business cases for CSR, and examining trends.
• Craft Beer - focusing specifically on CSR in the craft brewing industry and its initiatives.

Terminology around corporate social responsibility (CSR) varies and can make the subject a bit complicated. Our goal here is to set common definitions and identify key terms.

Corporate social responsibility is the obligation of an organization to minimize negative impacts and maximize positive impacts on its stakeholders, including its environment, resulting in long-term acquisition of resources (materials and people) for future financial success.

CSR is demonstrated by businesses through three channels of interactions that affects each of its resources:

• Environmental sustainability – This is your b​usiness​’s impact on its natural surroundings and materials it uses. The goal of sustainability practices is to limit your b​usiness​’s imprint on the earth by creating more efficient processes to limit resources needed or finding ways to replenish.
• Community engagement – This is your b​usiness​’s impact on the community. Think of your interactions with the community such as paying taxes, fulfilling a demand and donating to charity. These could also be negative impacts like using child labor or over-serving alcohol to customers. The goal of community engagement is to operate legally, be ethical, and interact positively with you community. Examples of community engagement practices are education, services, corporate giving, corporate philanthropy and volunteering.
• Employee engagement – This is your business's impact on the people in the organization. Typically these are human resource issues like turnover, low engagement and difficulty in hiring quality talent. The goal of employee engagement is to motivate and retain your team by connecting them to the positive impact your business​ makes in the community. Examples are volunteer programs, employee donation matching programs, or joining a board of directors for a charity.

In June, Breckenridge Brewery opened a new twelve-acre campus in Littleton, Colorado, becoming their main headquarters. A few weeks later, we were able to get an exclusive tour and interview with Todd Usry, Brewmaster and Director of Brewery Operations.

Todd showed us a number of sustainability designs and practices in the new facility. See picture of the new brewery and learn more about the sustainability initiatives in our article posted on PorchDrinking.com.

Read the article here: http://goo.gl/sv0RHE