SUSTAINABILITY

Beer brand uses its old beer bottles to help save coral reefs

By our News Team | 2022

A brewing company in Central America is collecting its discarded bottles to help regenerate coral reefs damaged by human activity.

Sustainability has become a key issue for marketers and management teams around the world, with the challenge often being to integrate meaningful sustainability strategies into an organisation’s daily business operations.

In the Central American nation of Costa Rica, which has extensive Pacific and Caribbean coastlines, a major beer-brewing brand has launched an innovative campaign that uses its second-hand glass beer bottles to help find a solution to what has been described as a ‘national coral reef emergency’.

Medalla Light beer recently launched its Great Reef Brewer Project that grinds unrecycled bottles into sand and incorporates it into a restorative cement mixture that encourages coral reef regrowth.

Sustainability

Photo by Joakant from Pixabay

The brand’s ad agency, DDB, created the campaign that so far has seen upwards of 30 000 beer bottles ground up. This has already restored around 9,300 square metres of reefs off the country’s coast, with more restoration to follow.

A four thousand percent increase in social media discussion

From a marketing and sustainability perspective, the industry publication Adweek reports that there been a 4,000% increase in social media discussion around the nation’s coral crisis, and a push for better legislation to protect marine ecosystems.

According to Adweek, Medalla Light started the initiative in response to Puerto Rico’s August 2021 declaration of national emergency due to the rapid spread of stony coral tissue loss disease, which depletes the local reefs.

“The coral reefs play a huge role in the global ecosystem as well as the economy of the islands, making this an ecological disaster of unprecedented proportion,” the publication reported.

“Stony coral tissue loss disease comes as a direct result of humanity’s impact on the planet. This truth has urged the brand to acknowledge that its responsibility to consumers extends beyond the sale of its products; its responsibility also includes ensuring safe disposal of its packaging.”

View all articles »