Molson in the Community

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 N^o 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 N^o 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

  

TBS leukemia drive 09, originally uploaded by Molson Blog.

A reminder that The Beer Store locations across Ontario will be calling upon Ontarians to donate your bottle return deposits to support Leukemia and Lymphoma research – this Saturday and Sunday May 23,24.

Management, staff and the UFCW local 12R24 union members are joining together in an effort to exceed the $650,000 raised last year. Molson is proud to salute the efforts of the The Beer Store in helping to make a difference in the broader community and thank our customers and those returning wine and spirit containers for playing a part in this initiative. A reminder as well that all beverage alcohol containers are returnable for a deposit at your local beer store. This includes tetra, plastic and small ready to drink containers as well. Thanks for helping make a difference in the fight against Leukemia and Lymphoma. Cheers ! @MolsonFerg

Photo L-R: Molson Brewery employee; John Drover and  Deputy Minister Bill Parrott, Environment and Conservation Dept, Government of NL; John Buckley, Brewery Manager.

Photo L-R: Deputy Minister Parrott and John Buckley

Want to make a difference!? Start by your own actions! That is an integral part of Molson’s Energy and Environmental Conservation Program — The Power to Make a Difference . The program is in it’s second year and thanks to employee engagement we are doing our bit in the community. In Newfoundland and Labrador our St. John’s Brewery welcomed a visit by Deputy Minister Bill Parrott, and John Drover, Director of Policy and Planning, both of whom work in the Environment and Conservation Department of the Provincial Government. They had a opportunity to tour the brewery and gain insights into a number of different initiatives. A key component is bringing awareness to employees – share our consumptions results – also receiving employee feedback for opportunities on conservation, recycling, and waste reduction.

Hey … we all need to do our bit at work and home to make a difference.

20080118-earth602

Originally uploaded by ferg.devins

March 28th 2009 at 830pm the world wiill engage in Earth Hour. At Molson we are proud to be actively engaged in raising awareness for our employees at all of our locations across the country and reaching out to the family, friends, neighbours, customers, beer drinkers and all Canadians to take action on March 28th.

Last year we had all of our operations take action to reduce energy, which actually resulted in some learning that helped us to change some of our practices to improve energy efficiencies. A simple action like turning off non essential lighting resulted in some powerful examples of how we can make a difference in energy conservation.

Molson salutes the folks at World Wildlife Fund for their continued efforts with Earth Hour and encourage our employees, customers, consumers, families, friends and neigbhours to rise up and get involved in this tremendous initiative on March 28th around the globe.

More to come…Cheers…@MolsonFerg

Cities in Canada already engaged include Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Vancouver and Edmonton.

Upon the release of recycling results and their environmental stewardship for The Beer Store in Ontario, I felt compelled to write a post and share the positive news with everyone. The Beer Store (of which Molson is a shareholder) has been doing a terrific job in environmental stewardship since partnering with the Government of Ontario to be the Ontario Deposit Return destination for all beverage alcohol containers.

Brewers have been doing their part for a long time. The industry standard bottle has 47 brewers participating in Canada which means significant re-use of this container and eventual recycling when the bottle wears out. These brewers represent more than 97% of the industry volume in Canada…quite an accomplishment.

The Beer Store role in Ontario’s Deposit Return for beverage alcohol is continuing to improve upon environmental stewardship in the province. To read the full report you can download it at the Beer Store’s environmental page on their web site.

I will also point you to more details on what Molson and Molson Coors Brewing Company are doing in the context of corporate responsibility by re-directing you to our Molson Coors Brewing Company environmental responsibility page.

What do you think our industry and Molson can be doing to continue to be more environmentally friendly ? Please let us know by commenting below…cheers !