EPA grant helps UNI’s craft beer sustainability program grow

A program that has helped Iowa breweries adopt more sustainable practices is expanding beyond the state, thanks to a federal grant.

The University of Northern Iowa’s Waste Reduction Center — or IWRC — launched the Iowa Green Brewery Certification program in 2017 to curb emissions and to encourage the craft beer industry to adopt more sustainable practices.

Now, a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency will grow the program’s reach.

“This grant from the EPA is basically for us to take what we've started with the Iowa Green Brewery Certification here in Iowa and formalize it, and then help other states implement a similar project,” said Joe Bolick, IWRC’s director.

The grant — $175,159 from the EPA’s Pollution Prevention Grant Program — will go toward helping other states in the EPA’s Region 7, which includes Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, create a similar program.

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Specifically, Bolick said the grant money will be spent on creating resources for neighboring states, like webinars and videos explaining how IWRC’s program works, as well as case studies of the breweries IWRC has worked with.

Bolick said having these resources available for other states will help them follow in IWRC’s footsteps.

They “show how we have overcome some obstacles and some various things that we've seen in implementing a successful program,” Bolick said.

Kate Larberg, EPA’s Region 7 pollution prevention coordinator, said UNI received the grant because its brewery certification program aligns with the goals of the EPA and the P2 (pollution prevention) Program.

Larberg said the seven applications EPA’s Region 7 received were evaluated based on criteria from the Notice of Funding Opportunity.

She said IWRC’s grant funding will cover personnel, travel, equipment and supplies needed to expand the program.

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34 Iowa breweries are certified

The Iowa Green Brewery Certification program has four levels: bronze, silver, gold and platinum.

Bolick that the UNI team “audits” each brewery after the business requests certification.

“The audit looks at everything from just overall environmental record keeping, to water quality and conservation of solid waste and energy efficiency,” Bolick said.

There are 100 points available within the audit. Each point is tied to one aspect of the brewing operation or sustainability of the brewery.

For example, Bolick said one point could be earned by installing energy-efficient light bulbs throughout the brewery, or if the business disposes of spent grain — the byproduct of brewing that may be made up of malted barley, wheat, rye or other grains — in a sustainable way.

The point categories are:

Since its launch, Bolick said the program has issued 34 certificates. The breweries and their rankings are listed on IWRC’s website.

Big Grove Brewery in Iowa City is one of five Iowa breweries that have earned the platinum-level certification. The others are Big Grove Brewery in Des Moines; Exile Brewing Co. in Des Moines; No Coast Beer Co. in Oskaloosa; and Singlespeed Brewing in Waterloo.

Mikala Demet, community and project manager for Big Grove Brewery, said that although the Iowa City location has been platinum certified since 2020 — originally certified at the gold level in 2018 — it continues to use the program.

“We use them as a resource all the time about how to make our business more sustainable, beyond just brewing,” Demet said.

Demet said the program has helped connect Big Grove with the Iowa Waste Exchange — a program through the Iowa Department of Natural Resources that finds alternative uses for waste. It also has helped the brewery coordinate composting efforts.

One of the biggest benefits of the program, Demet said, is that IWRC works with the breweries on what they can do to improve going forward, rather than auditing them and moving on.

“There are audit and certification programs that’s like, either you hit [the benchmarks] or you didn't, and that doesn’t always help you improve,” Demet said. “What makes [IWRC’s program] stand out is that they don’t just give you an accolade, they actually help you improve. The auditors tell you why they marked something the way they did, and I don't think you always see that.”

Through the years, Big Grove has made deliberate strides in sustainability efforts, including partnering with a local farmer to provide spent grain for cattle feed.

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In an average month, Demet said the farmer picks up about 150,000 pounds of spent grain from the Iowa City brewery. If not for the farmer, the grain would have gone to the landfill.

“We can't say enough about how much we enjoy their partnership,” Demet said.

Big Grove also has incorporated more QR code menus to save paper, and LED lighting and energy efficient equipment to cut down on electricity use.

Demet said Big Grove Iowa City received a grant from the city of Iowa City to grow its sustainable initiatives in 2022. That money went toward implementing a carbon recapture system.

The closed-loop system — dubbed the “CiCi” — captures the carbon dioxide that is emitted during brewing. The carbon dioxide is then used to carbonate brewed beverages.

“CiCi actually takes carbon from when the beer is fermenting, pulls [the carbon] back, cleans it all up, and we can actually reuse that CO2,” Demet said. “So not having to buy CO2, that would normally just be an emission or runoff, we're able to reuse that.”

Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Comments: olivia.cohen@thegazette.com