Boulevard Beer

Last week the owner of our local Boulevard Brewery spoke to our executive class. Interesting story -- typical of entreprenurs and we have many in K.C. Timely also, as they Boulevard has been in the news for their expansion into St. Louis, right into the belly of the beast beer empires (or former beer empires). Over 20 years McDonald has built the company to be one of the largest micro breweries in the nation (8th I believe is what he said), employing dozens of local people. What caught my interest was Boulevard's foray into glass recycling and the start of their business Ripple Glass.

Although Boulevard prefers to sell draft beer, they sell a lot of bottled beer; McDonald was concerned about the byproduct of sales -- empty glass. He did his research, finding out that glass was better when recycled separte from other trash -- when combined inefficiencies cause only a fraction of the glass to be able to be recycled as opposed to being dumped in the landfill. McDonld's concern and interest is genuine, enough to invest his time and money in the Ripple Glass venture.

But here is what is interesting -- he sees the venture (which needs to scale up significantly to create any profit) as helping him sell more beer. And this is a great lesson for corporate social responsiblity. Business people like McDonald can give back in important social ways by trying to make their business better. Though McDonald is not a Rockhurst alum, but he fits well with the Jesuit tradition of service to others and solid business ethics.