Climate Kegs – Carbon Neutrality Campaign

Project Overview

I led RMU’s carbon neutrality initiative by partnering with Climate Neutral to evaluate company-wide emissions. This carbon footprint assessment spanned three hospitality venues, international production sites in Sweden and Vietnam, and both domestic and global logistics operations. From a decision to pivot away from official carbon credit offsetting, this foundation evolved into “Climate Kegs,” a customer-facing campaign aimed at supporting reforestation in ski regions through hospitality-driven sustainability.

Each Climate Keg funded the planting of  ≈750 trees. Based on One Tree Planted's conservative estimate that the average tree absorbs about 10 kg (22 lb) of CO₂ per year for the first 20 years of life, each Climate Keg is structured to remove around 330,000 pounds (≈150 tonnes) of CO₂ over 20 years, turning hospitality-driven customer engagement into measurable local climate action.

The Challenge

In 2023, I was tasked with advancing RMU’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2025. The project required building a company-wide emissions baseline across a decentralized supply chain, including third-party manufacturers, international freight, B2B and D2C distribution channels, and RMU’s three hospitality venues. With operations spanning North America, Sweden, and Vietnam, calculating our carbon footprint proved complex. Despite establishing an emissions model, budget limitations restricted our ability to invest in official carbon credits or obtain official Climate Neutral certification.

The Solution

Collaborating with an appointed RMU climate lead and the Whistler marketing team, I redirected the project into a philanthropic initiative that aligned with RMU’s community-based hospitality model. We developed the “Saving the Ski Industry, One Beer at a Time” campaign, transforming the carbon-neutrality goal into reforestation projects supported through customer engagement. Building on the success of RMU’s Karma Kegs (where beer proceeds supported local charities), we partnered with One Tree Planted to plant one tree for every dollar raised. Each Climate Keg event was designed to generate roughly $750 in beer revenue across RMU’s three hospitality venues, funding around 750 trees per keg and delivering measurable environmental outcomes while deepening RMU’s brand purpose through community-driven sustainability.

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What I Did

• Led RMU’s carbon neutrality initiative in collaboration with Climate Neutral, assessing CO₂ emissions across retail production (Sweden & Vietnam), international and domestic freight, and three hospitality locations.
• Shifted the initiative away from formal CO₂ neutrality toward in-house, community-focused philanthropic initiatives, creating a campaign centered on local environmental restoration and ski-industry sustainability.
• Directed a cross-functional team (climate lead + marketing lead) to design and launch Climate Kegs, a sustainability campaign merging environmental impact with customer engagement.
  • Supported the team in producing branding and messaging for the campaign, including the slogan “Saving the Ski Industry, One Beer at a Time.”
  • Contributed to the creation of public marketing materials and produced the final campaign page (archive link provided below).
• Initiated a partnership with One Tree Planted and structured the funding model so that:
  • $1 in keg revenue funded one tree planted
  • Each keg generated approximately $750 in revenue, resulting in ~750 trees planted per event.