After sharing our ultimate tools & frameworks list with you in our previous newsletter, this month we wanted to make things a bit more tangible by taking a closer look at the new business blueprint of Scottish craft beer company BrewDog. Cheers!
For those of you who don't know BrewDog: They are a fast-growing craft beer brewery from Scottland with distribution and bars in an increasing amount of locations across the globe. In 2020, BrewDog became the world's first carbon-negative beer company and one year later, the company received its BCorp certification but also came under scrutiny after some employees accused the company of having a toxic work culture. BrewDog responded with an independent culture review and lots of new actions, for example, the creation of an Employee Representative Group.
Winding forward to today, BrewDog recently released its new BrewDog Blueprint offering a nice glimpse into their new business practices and plans. After we heard that the company received more than 1,000 job applications in the 10 days after the publication of the blueprint, we wanted to dig deeper into it and share with you what the successful craft beer brewery is doing to pioneer better business.
So here is a quick overview of our favorite business practices from BrewDog's new business blueprint for you to take inspiration from:
👫 People Blueprint
Employee-Ownership Programme
"Our Hop Stock programme will ensure that we are all in this together as we build the future of BrewDog."
Founder James Watt is giving away 5% of his BrewDog stake (worth around £100m) to its employees.
This means, 3.7m shares in BrewDog will be distributed evenly amongst all employees with each team member receiving approximately £30,000 per year in shares over the next 4 years.
Profit-Sharing
"We want to create a radically new business model for hospitality – one that firmly puts the people who make the real difference in our bars, those who look after our customers every day, at the very core of what we do."
Each BrewDog Bar is going to share 50% of its profits evenly with team members.
Profit share allocation is based on hours worked – so General Managers and bar crew share in the profits in the same way.
Financial details will be shared fully transparent with all team members, every month
Alumni Club
"With the BrewDog Alumni Club we want to formally recognise the contribution that all of our former team members have made and also thank them for their efforts."
Free to join alumni club for all former team members.
Benefits include amongst others a lifetime discount of 10% in all bars and on the online shop, a free 12 pack of beer every December and an invite to a yearly alumni social event
Sabbatical
Employees get 4 weeks full paid leave - beyond their normal holiday allocation for every 5 years of service.
Salary Cap
No-one can join the company for a salary higher than 7x of what the lowest full-time salary at Brewdog is.
Mental Health First Aiders
By the end of 2022, 10% of Brewdog staff will be qualified as mental health first aiders.
A monthly wellbeing lab covers topics from men's mental health to menopause.
DEI Forum
A crew-led Diversity, Equity and Inclusion forum meets weekly to drive actions within the company.
In August 2020, BrewDog became the world's first carbon negative beer business. The company removes twice as much carbon from the air as they emit, every single year.
BrewDog bought 9,308 acres in the Scottish highlands that will be restored and rewilded (including peatland restoration and native tree planting). The land is capable of pulling up to 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
The project was developed in partnership with independent sustainability expert Prof. Mike Berners-Lee.
Carbon Reduction Strategy
"When we count our carbon, we count all of it; this includes all direct emissions which occur at our breweries and bars, the emissions from the electricity we purchase, as well as the emissions of our entire upstream and downstream supply chain, globally."
Brewdog invests close to £50m to reduce their environmental impact. Their carbon footprint has already been reduced by 20% vs its 2019 baseline, with a 35% reduction being the target for 2023.
How?
A Bioplant was commissioned that will recycle and reuse most of the company's wastewater. The plant will also generate green gas to power the brewery and delivery trucks.
CO2 recovery by capturing the CO2 produced by the bioplant and during beer fermentation is planned.
All of BrewDog's UK business is already wind-powered, and all other global businesses purchase green electricity. Some, like BrewDog's Australian brewery is solar-power driven.
BrewDog is in the process of swapping out all of the company's delivery vehicles to low-carbon powered alternatives.
At BrewDog bars it's also all about switching to eco-friendly consumables, building local brewing sites to shorten the supply chain, reducing waste, carbon footprint labeling, and 50% vegan and veggie menus, amongst other things.
After reading all of these initiatives and programmes, what can you take inspiration from and implement in your business?
NEWS | In The Headlines
Interesting articles our community members have been sharing on our Slack this month?
Indian court rules that nature has legal status on par with humans.
Draft reform in Spain would offer three-day menstrual leave to women.
The Guardian reports about the oil industry's 'carbon bombs' set to trigger catastrophic climate breakdown.
Microsoft introduces sustainability cloud to help more businesses go green.
Italian luxury fashion group Zegna joins Nike linking CEO bonuses to climate targets.
Paris plans to remove two beltway lanes to cut pollution.
COMMUNITY | What Have We Been Up To?
What have our community members been up to this month?
Justin Kirby published a compendium of all his posts and insights about 'unpackin' purpose on LinkedIn.
Steven Ebbers is offering a 1-month program of coliving and coworking in Portugal with breathwork courses.
Jeff van Dijk is organizing a new Border Sessions Tech Culture conference.
Seun Olatunjiwas recently on Josephine Scholtes the Design Strategy Podcast.
Craig Griffiths together with Evolutesix invites everyone to their mid-career transition program starting on June 2nd.
