Deschutes Brewery is first craft brewery to use GRI sustainability reporting

Deschutes Brewery announced that it has established its first sustainability report with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework and standard. It is the first craft brewery to use the GRI model, and this report marks a baseline performance benchmark for the future. To develop the report, which tracks more than 45 measures of economic, environmental and social performance, Deschutes Brewery worked closely with Oregon State University-Cascades’ sustainability program to conduct audits and gather other data.

Deschutes Brewery has always worked to implement environmentally friendly solutions in its business, and the GRI report provides a formal, recognized way to measure progress from year to year. The report also presents the brewery’s values and governance model and demonstrates the link between strategy and commitment to a sustainable global economy. The goal is to produce an annual sustainability report, with an annual reporting cycle of data collection, reporting and analysis. The GRI process has helped identify risks and opportunities as well as improve management systems, benchmarking and goal setting for the company.

A few of the key take-aways from the brewery’s sustainability fact sheet are:

• Established a cross-department sustainability team.
• Gave more than $250,000 to local charities through the Community Giving Fund of 2012.
• Pledged to the Deschutes River Conservancy to protect 1 billion gallons of water annually.

Check out the Deschutes Brewery website for the full report.

GRI is an international not-for-profit organization that has pioneered and developed a comprehensive Sustainability Reporting Framework to help companies become more sustainable and contribute to sustainable development. It is used by more than 4,000 organizations around the world, including 80 percent of the world’s largest companies.