Anheuser-Busch Corporate Social Responsibility Program Ranked Best In The Beverage Business

For the second consecutive year, Anheuser-Busch (NYSE: BUD) has been honored for overall excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility, leading all other beverage companies.

Silver Spring, MD (PRWEB) October 29, 2009 -- For the second consecutive year, Anheuser-Busch has been honored for overall excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility, leading all other beverage companies.

"Anheuser-Busch is clearly 'the king' when it comes to social responsibility among beverage companies," said Joel Whitaker, editor of Kane's Beverage News Daily and Kane's Beverage Week, which sponsors the annual awards competition.

"The breadth of its programs and the effectiveness with which they are executed sets the standard."

Particularly impressive is how Anheuser-Busch's corporate social responsibility programs delivered value to the company's bottom line. While many companies have proclaimed their support of recycling, for instance, Anheuser-Busch actually recovers and recycles in its own facilities five aluminum cans for every four packaged. The company operates the world's largest Bio-Mass Recovery System and is installing solar energy arrays at many of its breweries.

All alcohol beverage companies work hard to promote responsible alcohol consumption. Anheuser-Busch's programs range from "We I.D.," a program that reminds retailers to check IDs to prevent sales of beer to underage people, to working with law enforcement in Connecticut and Indiana to provide outdoor advertising reminding drivers to use seatbelts and designated drivers, to backing the Federal Trade Commission's "We Don't Serve Teens" program with advertising in national publications, or billboards and in stores.

Anheuser-Busch also provides philanthropic support to nonprofits that support its business objectives and which help to make the communities in which A-B operates better places in which to live, work and raise a family.

Here is a complete list of winners, by category:

Diageo North America, Norwalk, Conn. - Cause Branding for DrinkiQ.com, a global resource to help combat alcohol abuse and to promote responsible drinking by sharing best practice tools, information and initiatives.
Anheuser-Busch Inc., St. Louis - Corporate-Community Partnership for working with Bi-Lo, a grocery chain in Tennessee and Georgia, to promote A-B's "We ID" campaign.
Anheuser-Busch Inc., St. Louis - Best Corporate Social Responsibility Report.
Anheuser-Busch Inc., St. Louis - Environmental Programs (described above).
Brown-Forman Corp., Louisville - employee communications for the environmental issue of Straight Up, a publication that provided employees with information about Brown-Forman's environmental programs, and why they are not merely "nice" or "green dressing" but critical to its bottom line. For example:

"The company may see specific and direct impacts from climate change," the issue says. "White oaks, essential to the maturing process, could be weakened or lost as parasites move with the shifting climate. California's vineyards may be hard hit by changes in rainfall and snowmelt pattern. There are likely to be increased pressures on farmers to supply enough adequate corn and other essential ingredients."

Anheuser-Busch Inc., St. Louis - Philanthropy for its support of the American Red Cross during disasters.

About Kane's Beverage News Daily and Kane's Beverage Week:
Kane's Beverage News Daily (www.bevnewsdaily.com) is a daily news service reporting on regulation, marketing and finance issues affecting the alcohol beverage industry and nonalcohol companies. It's weekly edition, Kane's Beverage Week, has been published for more than 70 years.

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