Good partnerships can help change the world

ORDER GREAT BARRIER BEER CITIZEN REEF EDITION: beercartel.com.au/great-barrier-beer-citizen-reef-australian-lager

We all know that our world faces some very big challenges right now. So it's time to pull together and collaborate - partnering up to take on these often scary and confronting issues like the climate crisis, together.

As a start up social enterprise set up to do good, The Good Beer Co is all about building good partnerships to help change the world. We've been lucky to team up with some fantastic people and organisations over the past three years - from breweries to charities to big businesses to small community organisations. It's helped us to grow, on the smell of an oily rag, and to take the important message and causes our good beers back to large numbers of new people.

I've been a big fan of LADBible ever since they created Trash Isles. That campaign won two Grand Prix awards at the Cannes Lions ("Giant Piles of Garbage Win Big at Cannes") - the oscars for the global advertising industry. But it did something more important than that. By creating a massive campaign to make the garbage patch in the middle of the Pacific Ocean a country in order get it recognised by the UN - and therefore cleaned up, it put the fight against ocean pollution in front of 37 million people around the globe.

So when I got the chance to work with LADBible Australia to create a special edition of our Great Barrier Beer to support their latest environmental campaign - CITIZEN REEF, it was an absolute no brainer. This campaign is as bold and exciting as Trash Isles - it's a plan to mobilise all Australians to get behind action on climate change and pollution to save our national icon, the Great Barrier Reef, by calling on the Australian Government to make the Reef an Australian Citizen.

CITIZEN REEF kicked things off by contacting the Australian Department of Home Affairs to ask them to make our Great Barrier Reef an Aussie citizen. Why? Well, by making the Great Barrier Reef an Australian citizen it will be protected by FOUR key Australian rights and freedoms:

Article 12.3: The right to the highest attainable standard of physical health.

Article 7.1: Freedom from torture or inhuman treatment and punishment.

Article 1.2: The right to maintain your own means of subsistence.

Article 6.1: The right to life. 

Here's CITIZEN REEF's change.org/citizenreef petition: "Put simply, if we recognise her contribution to Australia and rightfully make her an Aussie citizen, then the Australian government is obliged to make decisions in the interest of her health and safety (and in turn take real action against the one thing that’s really killing her – Climate Change!)."

We love creating a new beer or repurposing our existing beers to help amplify a really good campaign. And we love partnering with new campaigns and organisations that are trying to change our world for the better.

The last time we created a special edition campaign beer was when we partnered with the Australian Marriage Equality Campaign for our Love beer for the Yes campaign. We raised a #toast2love in every capital city and mobilised breweries, pubs and bars across Australia to say Yes to Love over a delicious Pale Ale.

And we created a Great Get Together Pale Ale in partnership with th Jo Cox Foundation to support The Great Get Together weekend "celebrating kindness, community, respect and the values we share" on the first anniversary of the murder of my friend Jo Cox. The beer was backed by 16 breweries, served in over 300 pubs and supported local events in communities across the country.

More than 60,000 Australians have already signed the CITIZEN REEF petition and counting. CITIZEN REEF is now mobilising that growing movement to call and email David Coleman MP, the Federal Minister for Citizenship to "grant the world’s largest living organism the same recognition and protections as every great Australian."

And they're just getting started.

This week we'll be canning the first batch of our special Great Barrier Beer CITIZEN REEF campaign limited edition Australian Lager here in the Reef's home state of Queensland, at our craft brewery partners Ballistic Beer.

As always, 10 percent of each beer sold will go back to our charity partners, the Australian Marine Conservation Society to help fund their work to tackle the two greatest threats to our national icon - pollution and climate change. And this time, we get to back a fantastic campaign too.

Here's what LADBible Australia had to say about our partnership with CITIZEN REEF: "Australian Beer Company Releases Beer That Will Help Save the Planet."

And you can read more about CITIZEN REEF beer in these articles:

Save the Great Barrier Reef? I'll drink to that - Pro Bono Australia

Queensland breweries get behind the Great Barrier Reef - Beer and Brewer

“A real crisis”: Meet the entrepreneur raising a glass to the Great Barrier Reef - Smart Company

The most important thing you can do right now is sign the petition.

As CITIZEN REEF says: "Every vote of support you contribute will directly notify the Australian Government, to let them know we are a unified voice who believe this living, breathing Aussie icon, should become a living, breathing Aussie citizen."

Now that's something all Australians can raise a glass to.

Great Barrier Beer is a cracking Australian Lager brewed with all Australian ingredients. It was voted one of the hottest new Aussie craft beers of 2018/19 and recognised as a finalist in the Banksia Sustainability Awards with every six pack packaged in a ground breaking marine life friendly holder from Aussie BCorp BioPak.

Order special edition CITIZEN REEF Great Barrier Beer now to be one of the first in Australia to sample our new "world first" certified compostable six pack holders from BioPak.

Sign the petition now: change.org/citizenreef

Share the petition with your networks.

Buy a Beer and Help the Reef.

Let's raise a toast to one of the greatest Australians of all time!

Cheers

James

PS Thanks to Stuart Ireland and the team from the brilliant Calypso Reef Imagery for the epic shots and video of Great Barrier Beer underwater on the Great Barrier Reef and to Sarah and Claudio and the team at our ecotourism parters, Sunlover Reef Cruises, for taking us out onto the Reef!