Employees focus on green efforts at Sleeman Breweries

There are few businesses greener than making beer. It starts with just four basic ingredients: “malt, hops, yeast and water,” according to Linden Gossen, national environmental health and safety manager at Sleeman Breweries. But beyond that, he says, there are so many opportunities to strive for an even more environmentally friendly product.

Sleeman, which makes beer across the country, from its headquarters in Guelph, Ont., to plants in Chambly, Que., Calgary, Alta. and Vernon, B.C., has a commitment to meeting not just local regulations but its own rigorous standards.

There are the “endlessly recyclable” glass bottles and aluminum cans that leave the plants, and the ingredients left over from brewing, which are used for animal feed. “Those opportunities are there in the type of business we’re in,” Gossen says. “But without a more concerted focus, green efforts don’t just happen by themselves.”

To that end, Sleeman Breweries has local green teams in each of its breweries, overseen by a national green team. Gossen describes how, working together, they’ve steadily made incremental improvements in each of their plants and warehouses. These range from regular checks for leaks in water lines and air pipes and upgrading a bottle pasteurizer with a newer, more efficient piece of equipment to equipping their delivery fleet with routing software that maximizes efficient delivery routes.

When the company did a waste audit of the business several years ago, it had a diversion rate from landfill of 60 per cent, higher than a goal that the province of Ontario, for instance, had set for industries but not, Gossen says, unusual for the brewery business.

“But when we started to focus and see the opportunities to maximize that, our diversion rate went to 97 or 98 per cent. That doesn’t happen without focus. There are natural aspects of brewing that are green, but if you want to achieve something significant, you have to work for it.”

Anik Henderson works at Sleeman’s brewery in Chambly, where she leads the local green team. She says initiatives there include stations to collect consumables like gloves and masks, getting rid of disposable utensils and dinnerware in the cafeteria in favour of dishwashers, and issuing reusable water bottles to employees.

“By mobilizing the entire plant, we’ve created a culture of sustainability,” Henderson says. “Working on the green team helped me see myself as an agent of change.”

This active workplace culture has reaped rewards for Sleeman Breweries, like the BC Hydro Clean Energy Champion Award, and Recyc-Québec’s Elite Status. Events organized for Earth Month in April and Circular Economy Month in October keep green programs at the forefront in Sleeman’s plants.

They have also inspired a new program, One Thing, where employees are asked to identify one thing the company can do and match it with something they can do personally to reduce their environmental footprint.

“We collect all those ideas,” Gossen says, “and distribute them to decision makers who can evaluate and act on these suggestions. This way, we get employees to think about the impact of their own environmental footprint.”

Henderson says she’s changed how she lives since working on Chambly’s green team. “As a parent, I want to leave a healthy planet for future generations,” she says. “What kind of leader would I be if I didn’t apply this to my daily life?”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Canada's Greenest Employers winners, published April 22, 2025 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.