What that means, and what it doesn't.
What B Corp actually is
B Corp is for businesses that are run for more than profit alone. Plenty of companies say that about themselves. This is a way of proving it.
It's an independent certification that looks at how a business is run, not just what it sells. A non-profit called B Lab audited us on how we treat our people, our community, our customers and the environment. Every number and every statement gets checked before you're allowed to call yourself a Certified B Corporation.
Our aim is to leave this place better than we found it. For a brewery like us, most of that comes down to waste. Everything we make that isn't beer, cider or spirits, and where it ends up.
Becoming a Certified B Corporation isn't the finish line for Good George. It's the floor.
We sent 446 tonnes to a farm instead
Brewing makes a lot of leftovers. Spent grain is the obvious one. Last year we sent 306 tonnes of it to Shynewood Farm, 12km down the road, as stock feed rather than to landfill.
Spent hops and yeast are the harder bit. They're wet, heavy and awkward to handle, and there's a drain right there. The easy option is to send it all into the city's wastewater system, where it gets treated at Pukete before it goes into the Waikato. We didn't take the easy option. 140 tonnes of it went to the farm with the grain.
That's 446 tonnes in a year that never saw a landfill or a drain. The cows aren't complaining.
We put 80 tonnes of CO2 back into the beer
Fermentation produces CO2. The simple thing to do is vent it, then buy in industrial CO2 to carbonate the beer and push it through the lines.
We capture ours and reuse it. 80 tonnes of it last year.
Same principle as the grain. Something that would otherwise be thrown away, kept and put to work.
What we're working on next
Leaving it better only counts if the numbers move. We've set three public goals:
- More self-sufficient on CO2. Capture more of our own and buy less in.
- A solar decision by 2028. Solar for the brewery roof, costed and decided.
- Less water per litre. Track and reduce the water we use for every litre we package.
We'll report back on how we go, including the ones we miss. Hold us to it.
Good George is a Certified B Corporation.
See our verified B Corp profile
Listed under our company name, Somerset Brewing Company Ltd.
