A behind the scenes blog – new bike lockers at the Molson Coors Kitsilano Brewery on Burrard St. in Vancouver! Thanks to David Tolnai, Operations for Molson Coors Canada in Vancouver for the update. Cheers, MolsonTonia
Molson Coors Vancouver Brewery’s new Bike Lockers
For four, heck, maybe even five months of the year, Vancouver is one of the nicest cities in Canada for bike riding. For the rest of the year it’s a nightmare, but during those five months riding a bicycle in Vancouver is pretty great. Unless you have to ride through downtown…or you want to run errands on the way home and need to lock your bike up outside of a store…or you don’t own lights…or you just don’t like getting wet!
Anyhow, riding a bicycle to work is a great way to get in shape and reduce the old carbon footprint. But making the decision to ride a bike to work isn’t easy and there are thousands of excuses holding people back from making the leap.
One excuse preventing Molson Coors employees from riding their bikes to work was the lack of appropriate bike storage facilities. In the past, there have been bikes locked to fences or stashed in stairwells, utility rooms and offices. None of these are ideal.
I’m happy to report that the Vancouver Brewery finally has a safe, clean, dry place to store bikes. A series of six double-sided bike storage lockers will store a total of twelve bicycles inside the gates at the brewery, out of the rain. Each locker will be assigned to a commuter and hopefully once springtime hits the demand will be great enough that we will be forced to buy more lockers.
It takes great employees to make great-tasting beer. And guess what we do have both at Molson Coors! Our employees are some of the most engaged people on the planet. And that’s because we have a passion for communicating to employees, and involving them in the vision and goals of our enterprise.
I am the first one to support and recognize that employees are vital to our success, which is why when it came to energizing the bottom line with energy efficiency, we focused on engaging employees.
After receiving the BC Hydro Power Smart Leader designation in May, our team’s engagement and passion has been recognized once again last week byThe Canadian Industry Program for Energy Conservation (CIPEC), a program of the Canadian Ministry of Natural Resources, which presented the Vancouver brewery with a Leadership Award in the category of “Employee awareness and training.”
What is CIPEC?
A program of Natural Resources Canada, CIPEC stands for Canadian Industry Program for Energy Conservation. To become CIPEC Leaders, organizations must agree to implement and report on energy conservation measures such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Why did we win? Communicate often—and then some
It was results that clinched the deal. Our communications worked. The Vancouver brewery successfully engaged employees to participate in energy conservation initiatives—supporting our overall goal to reduce energy consumption in all our breweries by at least 5 per cent annually.
This drive is lead by all in Vancouver (and at all our other breweries for that matter) but particular recognition is due to Daniel Pelland, our Chief Brewing Officer – (cool job title isn’t it?), Daniel was, and still is a strong supporter of engaging employees, and he took the decision to invest $$ to fund and support a comprehensive employee communication and awareness campaign “The Power to make a difference” and it paid off, on many many fronts since its launch. Also, kudos goes to Rene Holt, Brewery Manager and Scott Gordon, Chief Engineer, Certified Energy Manager, at the Vancouver brewery for spreading the gospel of energy conservation and driving ongoing initiatives related to energy and water conservation. It takes a lot of effort, resources and planning to reach out to employees. But as Scott said, “it works, people are not only helping us reach energy conservation initiatives while they’re on the job, they’re also thinking about how to conserve energy at home. That’s the real sign that employees are committed.”
Don’t take my word for it—see for yourself. Watch the Streeter Video (produced by Molson Coors Canada in partnership with BC Hydro and see our employees in action.
Attention all Eskimos fans: get a free ride to and from every Eskimos home game this season!!
For the second year, Molson is Proud to Play our Part in supporting the Edmonton Eskimos Green and Go Program. The Green and Go Program is a unique partnership between Molson, the Eskimos and Edmonton Transit that gives fans holding a valid gameday ticket a free ride on transit, LRT or Park and Ride two hours before and after each Eskimos home game.
The Green and Go Program is a perfect fit for our Here’s to Responsible Choices campaign, which focuses on celebrating the responsible choices that our consumers make.
Below is a clip from Shaw TV’s Green and Gold Gridiron show where I talk about the program.
Last weekend was Rock Weekend at Bayfest 2009 in Sarnia, ON, and WOW, what a show. I was there on the Saturday night and got to see See Spot Run, Our Lady Peace and Stone Temple Pilots. Friday night’s headliner was Kiss and I hear it was awesome! Just a few days ago was Country Weekend — featuring performances from Tim McGraw and Brad Paisley among others.
What was so special about this year’s event (in addition to the amazing performances, cold beer and sunshine)? Well, this year was the first of Bayfest’s five-year goal of becoming a near zero-waste festival. They plan to reduce waste by 20 per cent every year.
A good amount of waste created during Bayfest can be because of empty beer cups, so Molson helped to reduce that waste by making our No 1 recyclable polyethylene (PET) plastic beer cups available for the first time at this event. With the fest now over, the cups are being taken to a municipal recycling facility to be sorted and then recycled into various items.
Molson’s No 1 recyclable polyethylene (PET) plastic beer cups
As an industry leader, it’s very important that we set an example to reduce our environmental footprint. Eager to do our part, working with Bayfest this year to reduce beer cup waste is just one of many initiatives Molson is embarking upon. Just today, Molson Coors announced a collaboration between Molson Coors and Circle of Blue, an international non-profit organization that will help engage consumers, decision makers, and all of us with stories and information about water issues around the world and in our hometowns.
I found the John Molson trailer!
Way to go everyone who had a part in planning Bayfest this year – awesome job….still rocking out to Stone Temple Pilots! Fantastic shots of the whole festival on the Bayfest website.
If you were there, hope you had a great time. If you weren’t – see you in 2010! Cheers, @MolsonTonia
Scott Gordon, Vancouver Brewery Energy Team Leader; Rene Holt, Vancouver Brewery Manager; Kal Sahota, BC Hydro Key Account Manager and Daniel Pelland, Molson Chief Brewing Officer
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Great news for us from Vancouver this week. Yes indeed a few days ago (May 26) I had the opportunity to attend an awards dinner in Vancouver, where BC Hydro gave Molson their top award in the Power Smart program — the Power Smart Leader designation for 2009.
I felt very proud that our company was honoured with this huge award which speaks directly of Vancouver brewery achievements in saving energy, and driving environmental sustainability. It’s great to see this recognition being given to a lot of dedicated people who were diligently striving to make improvements over a number of years.
BC Hydro created the Power Smart program to provide programs and incentives to encourage customers to use less power, and Molson first got on board with the program in 2000. Starting with fairly low ratings, every year our team at the Vancouver brewery worked very hard to achieve significantly greater and greater energy savings. We continued to improve our Power Smart rating until in 2009 we won the Power Smart Leader award, as mentioned. It goes to show what persistence and commitment can do.
During the past 11 years since BC Hydro began Power Smart program, I think it’s interesting that so far only two public companies have received the Power Smart Leader award: Toyota and now Molson. By winning this award, Molson stands out as a company that cares, and shows others how it can be done–changing our thinking, operations and equipment in order to conserve energy. Not only is it good for the planet, it’s good for our business.
All the individual efforts of the employees in Vancouver are a big reason for this amazing success. Congratulations on making a difference!
