Giving Compass' Take:

• Adele Peters reports that Anheuser-Busch is moving their 100% renewable energy target by four years by purchasing offsets. 

• What do earlier targets mean for the future of renewable energy? How does purchasing offsets differ from actually using renewable energy? 

• Learn about support for renewable energy policies in the U.S.

When a new solar farm is completed on a sprawling, 2,000-acre site in Pecos County, Texas, by early 2021, every beer that Anheuser-Busch makes in the U.S. will come with a purchase of renewable electricity equal to the power used to brew it.

The company, which originally planned to reach a goal of using 100% renewable electricity to brew its beer by 2025, announced that it would accomplish that four years early. The brewer already buys renewable electricity credits from a wind farm in Oklahoma (the wind farm doesn’t directly send power to the company’s breweries, but Anheuser-Busch buys an equivalent amount of power from the facility). The credits that it buys from the new solar farm will cover the rest of its electricity use.

It’s the largest solar deal of its kind for an American beverage company. The project will generate as much electricity as it takes to brew 20 billion 12-ounce servings of beer each year. Brewing beer also uses heat that currently comes from fossil fuels, so the shift to renewable electricity doesn’t solve all of the company’s energy challenges–it’s just a first step.

Read the full article about Anheuser-Busch by Adele Peters at FastCompany.