It comes as no surprise that brewery called Mother Earth would grab this designation. Mother Earth Brewing (Kinston, NC) is officially the first brewery in the United States to be awarded LEED® Gold certification status from the United States Green Building Council. It took three years of renovations to reduce the carbon footprint to do this.
There are three levels of certifications: (Platinum, Gold and Silver). The entire program is voluntary. Building renovations since 2008 include:
installation of solar panels, recyclable carpet, eco-friendly tile, and insulation made of blue jeans. Eco-flush toilets save hundreds of gallons of water each year, and run on rain water collected in a cistern. The brewery also recycles everything from spent grain (feed for cattle) and the bags the grain comes in (converted to stylish shopping bags by local artisans) to the old wooden bourbon barrels the brewery uses for aging (converted to building materials and art pieces displayed throughout the facility).
Congratulations to brewery founders E. Trent Mooring and Stephen Hill!
