The Irish brewery Guinness will launch an agricultural program to make its stouts more sustainable. It has already tapped 40 Irish farms to join its pilot regenerative agriculture project, which involves working with the natural environment to put back more than it takes out. They also have soil management and crop production experts and suppliers on board.
The initiative intends to reduce the carbon emissions of its barley production—a primary ingredient in each black and white pint.
The impactful agriculture project has the key goals of improving soil health and its carbon sequestration potential; and enhancing biodiversity—natural soil fertilization, nutrient recycling, erosion control, and crop/tree pollination that keeps the ecosystem healthy.
“We will openly share the results from the pilot program so that other farms can learn and adopt practices that have demonstrated the highest potential impact from an environmental and farm profitability standpoint,” said President of Diageo Europe, John Kennedy, which owns the Guinness brand, in a statement. “Like the Irish farming community, we are ‘all in’ for the long haul—for our people, products, partners and planet.”
