New Owners Tell All
The younger generation has a different way of doing things. They learn math via TikTok videos. They use generative AI to write. They have different slang, like cheugy to mean not cool or skibidi to mean…well, no one over the age of 17 is sure what that means. But why do next-gen Carver Brewing Co. owners Claire and sibling Colin Carver want to totally scrap the successful brewery their forebears founded almost 40 years ago?
According to Claire, a grant from the City of Durango spurred her and her brother’s decision to scrap it all–meaning they will expand their compost collection out from the kitchen to the front of house, gathering all the leftovers on diners’ plates into Table to Farm’s green buckets!
Carver’s was named one of five local businesses to receive a 2024 Green Durango Grant of $5,000 to push forward a sustainability action plan. Grants go to supporting meaningful change across five sectors, including energy, transportation, consumption/waste, water, natural systems & ecology.
New Talent
Claire and Colin began training to take over the reigns of the family business a little over two and half years ago. Bill (dad) and Jim (uncle) stuck around for a solid six months of mentorship before officially stepping down to let the kids take the wheel.
“The first year or two was kind of a whirlwind, just kind of learning and diving in,” Claire laughs.
She and Colin came to the brewery with professional expertise in sustainability careers. Colin worked for a geothermal consulting company, testing geothermal sites across six different continents to see if they could or should be developed for energy use. Claire got a masters in greenhouse gas management and accounting. She helped run Bank of America’s net neutrality program.
She loved how her decisions directly impacted the world’s most pressing problems on a huge scale. She says, “I changed the type of toilet paper the bank used across all their global facilities, so one line item has this massive impact!”
However, when presented with the opportunity to carry on the family business, neither Claire nor Colin could say no. Too much had already been invested in making the business as green as possible. Beginning with a solar panel installation back in 2008, Carver’s eventually created a closed-loop water heating system that stewed the contents of their beer fermenters and cycled back to a boiler to provide heated water for cooking, cleaning, or bathroom handwashing. Next, they opted into renewable energy for their building’s electricity and became the first brewery and restaurant 100% powered by wind energy. They achieved total carbon neutrality in 2022, but the young siblings were not fully satisfied.
Pictured above (from left): 1.) The first rule of Food Club is do not panic if you cannot finish your food; leftovers will go in the compost! 2.) One reason Carver’s is so popular is that it has long been a leader in sustainability. 3.) Kitchen staff (and now front-end staff) have no trouble getting scraps into a T2F bucket.
Expanding Scrap Collection
When Claire joined the business operations team, she immediately performed a greenhouse gas inventory. She identified their biggest pools of emission waste, among which was food waste. “The compost was on my high target list!” she attests.
About a year ago, Carver’s adopted Table to Farm’s compost pickup service for its kitchen scraps. “It was basically seamless,” she says. “When you have a prep table, everything coming off that table is all vegetables. So, it’s pretty easy.”
However, extending the service to the front of house presented additional challenges. Napkins, straws, and other items can easily contaminate compost scraps, so Claire set about replacing those products with compostable and biodegradable options—a green step that saved them some green (dollars, that is). Next, they had to train the staff on how to dispose of leftovers properly.
“The feedback from the staff has been really awesome! They’ve all been really appreciative of it. They don’t see why we wouldn’t [compost],” Claire notes.
She and her brother are also tickled anytime they can educate people on how easy it is to be sustainable. She explains, “We’ve just taught 65 people how to compost! They can realize this is a service provided here in Durango. You can do this at home, too! Wouldn’t it be cool if every restaurant was doing what we’re doing? And then wouldn’t it be cool if every restaurant in the southwest…or across Colorado was doing it?”
In the end, it all boils down to the family values she and her brother inherited over the years. Waste not, want not was a powerful lesson older generations handed down. As well as being a good neighbor and caretaker of your space. Turns out some things never change from one generation to the next, and for the next generation, pulling together around a common cause totally slaps! As Claire puts it, “We cannot be singularly successful here without a ton of other successful restaurants in Durango; without a really successful river trail, bike lanes, and all those things. There’s definitely a ‘we’re all in this together’ mentality.”
To learn more about the Carver Brewing Co.’s sustainability successes, visit online or stop by 1022 Main Ave and ask about their new line of carbon-neutral beers!