New Belgium Strikes ‘100% Wind Powered’ Following Complaint

by | May 18, 2007

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Facing criticism from a former employee, New Belgium Brewing Co., often pointed to as an environmental leader, has cut phrasing from its marketing that claims it relies on total wind power, Fort Collins Weekly reports

Former New Belgium employee Eric Sutherland has sent an inquiry and expressed concern to the city’s Electric Board regarding the company’s participation in the Fort Collins Wind Power Program, saying the company has misled the public by calling itself “all wind powered” or operating on “100 percent renewable energy.” Like most Wind Power Programs, subscribers purchase renewable energy credits for the full amount of energy they use from sources that burn coal or natural gas.

As a result of Sutherland’s complaint, New Belguim says it has done an audit of all its materials, and omitted phrasing that claims total wind power. The brewery says it was matter of semantics.

“We took a look at what (Sutherland) was saying, that it could be inferred that we were saying that all the energy was coming (from wind power),” Bryan Simpson, New Belgium’s media relations director, says in the article. “So we have gone through our literature and amended any reference to fully or 100 percent wind power.”

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