Every fall, hundreds of brewers, thousands of beers, and thousands of attendees visit the Colorado Convention Center in Denver for a 3-day competition and celebration of beer. It’s the Great American Beer Fest. What you might not know is the connection between brewing quality beer and taking care of the environment. For example, you can’t drink good beer without good water. As part of my Environment of Beer series, here’s a look at the environmental initiatives of the Festival and the host convention center. If you’re attending the Fest and see a guy asking and writing about the environment of beer, stop and say, Hi. It’s probably me. Cheers.

Great American Beer Fest

The following information comes from the Festival’s website. Check it out for more information.

Waste Diversion

• The 2017 Festival had a waste diversion rate of 63%. This means 63% of all waste was diverted from landfills through recycling and compost.
• The 2016 diversion rate was 85%

Certification

The Festival has been recognized with Certifiably Green Denver certification, since 2016. This involves implementing practices designed to realize savings in water, energy, waste, sustainable management and transportation practices.

Attending the Fest? What can you do? 

• Put waste in its place. Visit one of the ZeroHero stations for recycling and composting.
• Reuse that sampling glass for all your beer and water.
• Use public transportation to and from the fest. This also provided a designated driver.

Colorado Convention Center

The following information comes from the Colorado Convention Center Sustainability webpage. Check it out for more information.

Solar Panels

Installed in 2008, their production equates to saving the following carbon dioxide emissions.

• Saving 31,676 gallons of gasoline
• Saving 655 barrels of oil
• Planting 7,067 trees
• Taking 53 cars off the road for a year

Waste

• There is single stream recycling throughout the convention center.
• A compost collection program diverts materials from going to a landfill.
• A program to donate left over conference materials to local organizations and nonprofits.

Water

• The grass along 14th Street was replaced with native and drought resistant plants. Therefore, 75% less water is used to maintain these areas.
• All toilets are low flow 1.6 gallons per flush.
• All urinals are low flow 0.5 gallons per flush
• Permanent water bottle filling stations are installed at each water fountain to allow for easy use of refillable water bottles

Blue Bear Farm

• This is a farm at the convention center, with 5,000 square feet of growing space that grows more than 1,800 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables.
• This is part of the Denver Mayor, Michael Hancock’s Denver Seeds Initiative to grow a fresh food economy that will create jobs from plant to plate.

Certifications

These certifications might not mean something to every visitor to the center. But they are good indicators of a building with strong environmental initiatives.

• Leed Gold
• Green Meeting Industry Council Certified
• ASTM Environmentally Sustainable Meetings, Events, Trade Shows, and Conferences (E2774-11).  In December 2012, the Colorado Convention Center (CCC) became the first event and conference venue in the world to be certified to the international sustainability standard.
• EMS ISO 14001
• Environmental Leadership Program, Gold Leader