Thank you to all volunteers who took a few hours of their weekend and got their hands a bit dirty. Reports and photos are coming in this week from each event…details from Toronto and Calgary first. Cheers.
Woodbine Beach Park, Toronto
Approximately 300 volunteers gathered to clean up the shoreline and surrounding area of Woodbine Beach Park. We collected 677 kilograms of garbage! The hardworking Molson Canadian Red Leaf volunteers did some “good” and then received some “awesome” with tickets to the Casby awards!
Elbow River, Calgary
40 volunteers gathered to clean the Elbow River Pathway in Calgary. Over 35 bags of garbage were collected by Molson employees and Red Leaf Project Volunteers.
Our first Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup (GCSC) took place last Wednesday in Toronto, ON at Marie Curtis Park. Approximately 60 Molson Coors employees rolled up their sleeves and spent two hours cleaning up the park which includes a beach area right on Lake Ontario. After getting our hands dirty and collecting some interesting items, the team celebrated “doing some good” with some “awesome” = cold beers
This was the first of many shoreline cleanups coming up this month as part of Molson Coors Water Stewardship Month and a continuation of the Molson Canadian Red Leaf Project, a national sponsor of the GCSC.
As part of Molson Coors‘ global water strategy, we are celebrating our second annual Water Stewardship Month in September. Throughout the month, we will be focused on innovative programs designed to educate and engage employees in the United Kingdom, Canada, and United States on the importance of protecting the world’s most valuable resource.
“As a leading global brewer, we have a long-standing commitment to water sustainability along with more than 200 years of experience in managing complex water issues,” said Bart Alexander, chief corporate responsibility officer for Molson Coors. “Since fresh water is the single most important ingredient in beer, we not only have a responsibility to be good stewards of this valuable resource, but to raise awareness with our employees and the community on the critical importance of water sustainability. Water Stewardship Month in September is just one of the ways we do that.”
The core of our employee education effort is the Every Drop, Every Ripple campaign. The campaign emphasizes why water matters to Molson Coors and encourages employees to join the company in pledging to be good stewards of the drops they use and to be community-minded about the ripples they leave behind.
In addition to employee education, we will also participate in a number of watershed volunteer activities across their markets, including:
Molson Coors Canada is a national sponsor for the 2011 Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup (GCSH) in partnership with WWF Canada and the Vancouver Aquarium. Last year, 47,000 Canadians volunteered to remove shoreline litter. Molson Coors employees across Canada will participate in the cleanup events.
• Denver and Golden, CO, September 9 & 24
On September 9, the Golden Brewery will host its fifth annual Friends of the Forest day in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and the National Forest Foundation to repair the streambed along the Clear Creek Watershed. On September 24, employees will join the 19th Annual Fall South Platte RiverSweep. The Greenway Foundation hosts the 15-mile river cleanup.
• Burton, UK, September 12 & 13, Alton, UK, September 29 & Tadcaster, UK, September 30
Over 100 employees will assist in a canal clean up effort between Alrewas and Burton on September 12 and 13. In addition, Molson Coors UK will offer ‘lunch and learns’ to brewery teams to increase awareness of the importance of water to Molson Coors, its operations and how employees can get involved.
Employees Around the World “Cheers to Water”
As part of our commitment to water sustainability, Molson Coors has been a lead sponsor of Carbon Disclosure’s Water Disclosure Project since 2010. The Water Disclosure Project data provides valuable insight into the strategies deployed by many of the largest companies in the world on water and will be used to help drive investment towards sustainable water use.
Molson Coors also became a signatory to the United Nations’ CEO Water Mandate in 2008 and has modeled its own global water strategy after the mandate’s six elements. The strategy has set a target to reduce water use by 15%, per unit of production, by the end of 2012 (baseline year 2008), 4.4hl of water to 1hl of beer. In 2010, the production ratio was 4.7:1 hl/hl.
After a summer of successful community greening initiatives, the Molson Canadian Red Leaf Project is continuing through the month of September (Water Stewardship Month at Molson Coors Brewing Company). Red Leaf Project is a national sponsor of the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup (GCSC), a conservation initiative that promotes understanding of shoreline litter issues by engaging Canadians to rehabilitate shoreline areas. This fall we will be hosting shoreline cleanups across Canada as part of Molson Canadian’s ongoing commitment to give back to the land through tree planting, community park projects and shoreline cleanup efforts.
We hope you’ll get your hands a bit dirty and join us for a shoreline cleanup…and then stay for a cold beer! Cheers.
See below for the locations, and remember, if there isn’t one near you, click here to join or organize your own in your community. Hope to see you there!
It was a busy 24 hours from Friday into Saturday for Molson Coors Canada…in the spirit of ‘proud to play our part’, we got up early on a weekend morning and volunteered to clean the shoreline of Woodbine Beach in Toronto! It was a fun and productive morning, that saw 220 volunteers collect 380kg of trash. Several Molson Coors employees came out as well, accompanied by their friends and family to help make our shorelines a little more beautiful.Following the clean-up, the group headed to the Gull and Firkin for some pints of Canadian and delicious appetizers.
Molson Canadian partnered with WWF and the Vancouver Aquarium as a national sponsor of the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup and participated in these clean-ups across the country, which run from September 18 all the way through to the 26th. There were also employees who took the initiative to plan their own clean-up event in their communities, and acted as brand ambassadors of Molson Coors wearing t-shirts and sampling some fine Molson Canadian with their friends. With water being such an important part of brewing our beers, we wanted to play our part and keep Canadian water clean and our land beautiful.
A big thank you to Tonia Hammer, who planned and represented Molson Coors at this event. Cheers!
P.S. – Best find of the clean-up goes to Mike MacDonald for recovering a suitcase…interesting to say the least!
Check out the video of Ian Douglas, one of the key leaders at MCC for water stewardship in Canada, talking about the GCSC (I hope you’re a Journey fan):
Background on the cleanup: From September 18–26, Canadians will be volunteering at shoreline cleanup sites in urban and rural communities, removing harmful litter from fresh and salt water shorelines coast to coast to coast.
How do you get involved?
You, your friends and family are invited to help clean up our local shorelines and then join Molson Canadian at a wrap up celebration!
There are hundreds of other locations across the country – to find one in your hometown: http://shorelinecleanup.ca/en/search/cleanups
We’re excited to play our part in an initiative that will help keep Canada’s water resources beautiful so we can continue to brew our beer with the best this land has to offer! I’ll be at the Toronto event this weekend along with fellow Molson Coors employees @MolsonMoffat and @MolsonCaroleB. If you’re in the area, drop by for the cleanup and a cold one
This September 18-26th, thousands of Canadians will take time out of their busy lives to rehabilitate their local shorelines through the removal of shoreline litter in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. This year Molson Canadian is excited to play its part as a National Sponsor, partnering with the Vancouver Aquarium and WWF-Canada
In 2009, participants removed litter from 2,457 km of shoreline in Canada, making the GCSC Canada’s largest contributor to the International Coastal Cleanup, a global effort to remove harmful litter and aquatic debris from shorelines.
There are two ways to get involved. You can help cleanup by becoming a participant of an existing cleanup, OR, you can organize a cleanup by becoming a Site Coordinator. Groups, families, companies, individuals are all welcome!
Why are we involved? Well, we believe that good business practices include environmental stewardship, and September at Molson Coors Brewing Company is a Month of Action focused on Water. Water is essential to the brewing process – without great water, we can’t make great beer. More about Molson Coors Water Stewardship
There are hundreds and hundreds of cleanups organized across the country, so you’ll most likely be able to find one close to you. Molson Coors employees will be joining the pack to help preserve and restore the beauty that Canada is. I’ll have more details about our involvement in the coming weeks – hope to see our water (and beer!) loving friends join us
