Welcome !

New Belgium supports organizations who offer wide ranging Youth Environmental Education programs, and one of our most recent partnerships was with Eco-Cycle in Boulder, CO.  Our grant targeted the Green Stars School Program. This first-in-the-nation program addresses every aspect of a school’s waste stream.  Students, school staff, and families adopt Zero Waste practices which encompasses waste reduction, composting, and recycling to keep 2/3 of their trash out of the landfill.  This comprehensive program is the only one in the nation in which students learn to recycle and compost waste from ALL areas of the school including cafeterias, classrooms, bathrooms and offices.  Currently, the program is impacting more than 11,000 students, ages 3-14, and more than 1,600 school staff in 29 Boulder County public schools.

Eco-Cycle’s diverse communications, education and outreach programs encourage recycling and composting, promote waste reduction, and advance our community’s progress toward Zero Waste. Eco-Cycle’s school environmental education programs improve environmental awareness, foster stewardship and make Zero Waste a part of daily school life.  Way to go Eco-Cycle!

At New Belgium we like to collaBEERate.  We believe collaboration reinforces democratic values and builds better communities through sharing, innovation and creativity.  When our NorCal NBB pedalin pixie Jen, who volunteers with City Slicker Farms, recommended our cross-departmental philanthropy committee check ‘em out we did just that and almost immediately feel in love.  Turns out City Slicker Farms loves to collaborate as much as we do!!  They saw an urban food desert in West Oakland, a community where access to affordable, fresh, healthy food was hard to come by and decided to do something about it.  In 2011 City Slicker Farms supported over 2,000 West Oakland community members in growing and harvesting 34,000 pounds of food.

Since their inception in 2001 City Slicker Farms has transformed the lives of thousands in West Oakland.  They’ve collaborated with schools, governmental agencies, and local businesses to turn an abandoned concrete industrial desert into an edible green oasis providing sustenance, service learning, a sense of civic pride and overall a more connected, healthier, community through their expertly managed programs!!   By advocating for policies that foster health and empowerment, by providing training and educational opportunities, and by cultivating underutilized, blighted urban spaces turning them into places of civic pride, City Slicker Farms transforms broken food systems as well as their community.

City Slicker Farms' mission is to empower West Oakland community members to meet their basic need for fresh, healthy food by creating sustainable, high-yield urban farms and backyard gardens. Envisioning a healthy West Oakland where everyone has reliable access to fresh, healthy foods and to the knowledge and resources to grow it.

To learn more about City Slicker Farms’ awesome scope of work, check them out at: www.cityslickerfarms.org

Beer is an agricultural product, born from nutritious soil, water, and hard-working hands. New Belgium Brewing purchases barley, hops, and various spices primarily from the United States and Canada, as well as a very small amount from abroad. Our business depends on these high quality, affordable, and reliable ingredients to make the delicious beer we all enjoy. Because of this, we value a vibrant and complete ecosystem to support our livelihoods and great beer for many generations to come.

Agriculture accounts for the majority of water consumed by human-based activity on the planet, and it emits significant greenhouse gas emissions. Through our charitable contributions and work with our suppliers, we hope to do our part in encouraging agriculture to become more sustainable and even regenerative.


We are in support of Sustainable Agriculture projects that:

• Build and maintain healthy and resilient soil
• Protect and conserve clean and abundant water
• Create a healthy working environment for farmers, their families, their communities and the wildlife with which they share their land
• Help young farmers overcome barriers to entering this profession
• Build collaborative relationships between farmers and suppliers
• Promote urban farming in low income areas or food deserts

The communities in which we (will) brew our beer are intrinsically bound to great American rivers: the Cache la Poudre in Fort Collins, CO and the French Broad River in Asheville, NC. Access to clean water is a (threatened) basic human right, and the effects of climate change exacerbate the aridity of the West. Since water makes up over 90% of our beer, we approach our role as stewards of these rivers sincerely. We aim to take only what we need and return any excess water as clean as we got it. This means reducing our water consumption wherever we can and avoiding the use of toxic cleaning agents or anything else that might compromise the purity of the water as it leaves our facility.

Of course, we can do everything within our power to reduce the quantity and increase the quality of the water we use, but that alone won’t preserve and rebuild the country’s many threatened rivers. We are a small splash in a giant pond, and we want to make our splash ripple. Because of this, we started Save the Colorado which donates over $150,000 a year to organizations working to research and repair the Colorado River.


We are in support of Water Conservation and Restoration projects that:

• Support public policy and advocacy
• Engage restoration activities
• Encourage conservation
• Focus on ecological health and biodiversity