At MillerCoors, we consider water to be the "lifeblood of beer."  At the start of the brewing process, barley is steeped in water to begin the germination process. Then, the malted barley is cooked in water to convert its starch to sugars, and finally the sugars are boiled in water with hops to make beer. Water is also an essential part of the heating, cooling, cleaning and packaging processes in our breweries.

We need great water to brew great beer, but we also know water is essential to life. We recognize that there is a demand for water by others besides us, so we pay close attention to our impact on water use in the communities where we operate.

We want to make sure there is plenty of quality water to brew great beer and to sustain a healthy and growing community.  That's why we take a comprehensive approach to water stewardship. Click on the links below to dive deeper into our progress and future goals for each area of our water stewardship strategy.

		Water Efficiency With three of our eight major breweries located in water-scarce or water-stressed regions, water efficiency is a top priority at MillerCoors. That's why we're committed to increasing our water efficiency, as measured by the amount of water required to produce a barrel of beer, and have a 2015 goal to reduce our water usage by 15 percent.
		Wastewater One of the biggest ways we can make a difference is by capturing and reusing water, rather than discharging it. We're implementing strong environmental management systems and minimizing the environmental impacts from our breweries, container manufacturing plants and wastewater effluent.
		Water Footprinting We can't make a difference without awareness. That's why we're working to understand our full water “footprint”—how, when and where we use water in our business and supply chain and working with suppliers to reduce our impact.
		Watershed Assessments Knowing how much water is available to us, and how we use it, are complex issues.  We are committed to knowing watersheds for our breweries and container manufacturing plants around the U.S. so we can take the appropriate actions to mitigate risks.
		Community Social Investment In addition to enhancing at our brewery processes, we're committed to making external financial contributions, too.  We are both directing and supporting community investment efforts and building active partnerships with others toward water stewardship.