In the spring of 2018, I worked with Castle Island Brewing - of Norwood, MA - as a sustainability consultant. This was an unpaid, for-credit opportunity that I used as an independent study for Olin College.

In my role within Castle Island, I shadowed the head brewer, as well as other employees, throughout the entirety of the brewing process to learn and understand the day-to-day and met often with the founder/president to make sure my work and suggestions aligned with the goals and values of the brewery. External to Castle Island,  I engaged with sales reps and CEOs of companies who might help facilitate the integration of an economically and environmentally sustainable addendum or alternative to Castle Island's current processes.  Ultimately, I sought to ameliorate Castle Island's disposal of cold waste - a roughly 3.5 ton a week mixture of hops, yeast, flavor additives and wash. 

Throughout this process, I ran headfirst into the problem of "true cost". The true cost, in this case of sewage treatment, is not reflected in the rates paid, nor the true benefit of participating in more socially and environmentally advantageous alternatives. This remains a problem throughout most areas of environmental economics and one I could not escape from. I knew about this issue previously from some of the courses I had taken, but bumping up against it in the real world was a very valuable lesson. 

In the end, although no current alternative to dumping the cold waste down the drain proved to be viable, the status quo was determined to be neutral in its environmental impact, not nearly the large, negative strain that we hypothesized going in. Furthermore, as Castle Island continues to grow, they now have relationships with partners in the waste handling industry that may be able to turn some of Castle Islands waste into value added byproducts, impossible now because of a lack of scale. Finally, as a result of my measuring and visualizing resources consumed, Castle Island may be able to renegotiate some utility costs with its providers due to production and measurement discrepancies. 

To view a slide deck I presented to my local town council, school president and trustees present, please see below.