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I expend a lot of effort considering carbon footprint when shopping for food. I want the product with the lowest embodied energy. Cans of Dale’s Pale Ale fit the bill, according to my unscientific calculations. Cans require less production and transportation energy than bottles, methinks. They are easily recycled. And surely out-of-state beer is responsible for a big cloud of diesel exhaust.

But it’s not so simple. It turns out that transport is a relatively small portion of the life-cycle energy impact of beer. And cans may be no better than bottles.

True, it’s not easy for a shopper to perform a life-cycle analysis on every product (and it would make for a daylong trip to the liquor store). But folks need to look beyond corporate hype about local sourcing and efficient factories—if the PR ignores the rest of the energy inputs.

Companies could benefit directly and indirectly from a life-cycle energy analysis. By understanding such costs, they can find savings, especially when energy expenses increase. They also can attract savvy shoppers who really want to know everything about product sustainability.

Sustainability directors from New Belgium Brewery (the Fat Tire beer folks) and Wal-Mart (the everything-else-in-the-world folks) spoke recently at a Colorado State University conference. Here’s what they had to say:

Cold Beer Isn’t Cool
Jenn Orgolini of New Belgium said her company’s life-cycle assessment showed that only about 5% of a Fat Tire six-pack’s carbon footprint is generated in the New Belgium plant. “Upstream” inputs—mainly glass making, not glass transporting—account for 48%. Even after all those bottles are full of heavy, delicious beer, the carbon costs for transportation are minimal.

Cans cut transportation cost because they are lighter and more stackable. However, Orgolini said the production costs of cans are higher than bottles because of energy-intensive bauxite mining. Ideally, all cans would be 100% recycled, but that assumes no cans are thrown in the trash, and that fewer are produced in the world every year—an unlikely environmentalist pipe dream.

In-store refrigeration is the single biggest swath of a beer’s carbon footprint, according to New Belgium. The same goes for wine, champagne and those scary spiked-energy drinks. So next time you’re in the liquor store, pick up an unrefrigerated case of beer and tell the clerk to stop wasting so much energy.

Wal-Mart Wants to Be Cool
Wal-Mart has made many environmentalist enemies, but it seems to be trying to make amends. Now, before I start praising Wal-Mart, let me preempt some angry comments. I realize that using centralized distribution centers to route disposable “stuff” from all over the world raises inherent sustainability issues.

The company is, however, moving in the green direction, including an initiative that would make their truck fleet 100% more efficient. Again, transportation may account for a small piece of the carbon footprint of each product; however, the largest trucking fleet in the world has a pretty big overall carbon footprint.

The company is also making its customers aware of each product’s impact on global warming by labeling its respective life-cycle carbon costs. Admittedly, this is an inexact science, but it gives shoppers a fair estimate of the relative carbon footprints of products. At least we can shop with information, not hunches—like my fallacious one that local cans of beer are better for the environment.

Updated 9/8/10; originally posted 10/14/09.

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