From our teammate Ty: an enlightening business model from our friends at New Belgium Breweries Check out the types of advancements they've achieved through an open culture and embracing a creative process.

They are able to power entire portions of their plant from generators on site that capture methane from their on site water treatment facility.

They heat portions of the plant with steam recaptured from the brewing process and piped into the rooms

When constructing the plant, the owner was so worried that the business would fail that he built a window large enough for the equipment could be removed by crane so that the building could be converted and sold, just in case.

The business is completely employee owned, with employees having open access to financial statements and a vote in all decisions made in the company. In addition to employees assuming the risk of the business, it also motivates them to innovate within their own responsibilities so that they can help the bottom line.

A quote from one employee...

"If I could improve one thing at New Belgium it would be the slide. I think we should take it to another level and create a water slide that starts from the packaging hall and goes all throughout the brewery ending inside of one of the malt silos. It would be called the Beers-Eye-View or Beers-Eye-De-Ja-View If someone wanted to go through the tour twice. Beer samples would of course be served in sippy cups to avoid excessive spillage. We will offer an array of New Belgium swim suit sizes. Visitors could do the tour from the comfort of our heated clear plastic water tube that actually followed the production path of a keg of beer (in reverse order). You start out in the packaging hall, go through the keg line, through the keg washer, into the bright beer tanks, through the fermentation tanks and into the brew kettle, wort chiller, wet mill, then back to the malt silo-ending in a huge 70-foot drop at terminal velocity into one of the malt storage silosâ€|where the folks had to swim around in the grain until they reached the exit. The first person to find the exit would win the chance to be Brewmaster for a day and have a post coaster dedicated to them. I see this like a Willie Wonka meets Whats Your Trip?".