Craft brewery Toast Ale has published its 2020 Impact Report that sets out how the business is leading a movement to change the planet over a pint.
Toast was the first UK brewery to become a certified B Corp in 2018 and has been recertified with the highest score of all UK breweries.
The report includes full details of the brewery’s carbon footprint. It has gone beyond compensating for its emissions by investing in UK regenerative agriculture, making it carbon neutral and nature positive.
Food production is the biggest contributor to climate change and biodiversity loss – it is responsible for 80% of deforestation, 70% of freshwater use and 34% of greenhouse gas emissions according to the latest study. But one third of all food is wasted.
Toast Ale was founded in 2015 with a mission to reduce food waste by brewing beer with surplus bread.
Influencing wider systemic change is also key to Toast’s mission. It does this by funding charities tackling underlying causes of waste, collaborating with other breweries to lead an industry wide movement and creating positive conversations to nudge behaviour change.
Now, Toast has published its latest impact report that sets out how the business is leading a movement to change the planet over a pint. Toast Ale is also celebrating its B Corp recertification.
Toast Ale became the first UK brewery to certify as a B Corp in 2018. To certify, businesses must demonstrate that they meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.
B Corps must recertify every three years to maintain certification. Toast’s impact report shares the result of the recertification process, which puts the company as the best performing UK brewery.
The certification process involves an independent assessment of a company’s impact on its workers, customers, community and environment. Toast has set out its impact report to explain the work it is doing under each category.
Under the environment category, it reports its full carbon footprint, which has been audited by ClimatePartner to ensure it aligns with the GHG Protocol. It includes the emission sources and the work needed to reduce emissions to meet the ambitions of the Paris Agreement.
To go beyond carbon neutrality, Toast Ale has invested in UK regenerative agriculture.
Whilst the business works to reduce its emissions to meet its goal to be Net Zero by 2030, it is investing in nature based solutions to do more than just balancing emissions with removals. For this, Toast Ale has partnered with Soil Heroes to invest in UK farms on regenerative journeys.
Regenerative agriculture uses nature friendly farming practices that include no tilling, fewer chemicals, year long cover crops and wildflower margins. These practices rebuild soil organic matter and restore biodiversity, resulting in carbon drawdown and improvements to the water cycle.
Louisa Ziane, Toast’s co-founder and chief operating officer, said: ‘We have been cautious not to make misleading statements about the environmental impact of our business. We leave a footprint on the planet, and we wanted to be fully transparent about the size of that footprint and the work needed to reduce it.’
‘We decided to not only compensate for those emissions, but to go much further and regenerate,’ she added. ‘So we are investing in regenerative agriculture. As well as removing CO2 to make us carbon neutral, the enhancement of biodiversity means we can be nature positive. And ultimately, healthy soils are more nutrient rich, giving us better food (and beer).’
Toast’s impact report is available to download via its website here or by scanning the
QR code.