Cheers! For environmentally friendly beer

Sapporo beer has rolled out an advertising campaign with a focus on food safety. The commercials discuss traceability of ingredients and other strategies to regain consumer confidence. I think the ads are great, and the experts are making it very clear that as consumers decide to ask more questions about the origins of food, the producers will have to make more efforts too. Watch the ads here (in Japanese).

From the Sapporo website I learned the following:

In the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China, we have been successful in producing quality aroma hops without using agricultural chemicals, attracting interest from around the world. Our Japanese-Chinese joint venture in China, Xinjiang Fubei Sapporo Hop Co. Ltd., achieved 100% traceability of the sources of hops it purchases, ensuring that no agricultural chemicals or other unsuitable techniques or materials are employed.

Asahi beer is another huge Japanese brewery, that has increasingly initiated CSR projects (CSR = Corporate Social Responsibility). This CSR chart (pdf) has a lot of details about their efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, reduce waste materials and so on. It also has an excellent timeline of the company's environmental "efforts and social efforts".

(Photo from this website, with more fun photos!)