- James Watt, BrewDog

We’ve been watching on with interest as the folks at BrewDog enjoyed another quiet month at the office, with not one but two massive stories hitting the news recently (and a third if you count us announcing James Watt as our headliner speaker *wink emoji*).

First up, they announced that they have become carbon negative, meaning they now take twice as much carbon out of the air as they emit (including throughout their supply chain). This involves them buying their own forest in the Scottish Highlands (as you do) and planting over a million trees in the next two years.

At the same time, they had a rather enjoyable public spat with supermarket chain Aldi. To recap: Aldi shamelessly ripped off BrewDog’s Punk IPA; in response BrewDog joked that they would make a fake Aldi beer; people loved the idea; Aldi then offered to stock the fake Aldi beer; and finally BrewDog and Aldi agreed for every case sold they would each plant one extra tree in the BrewDog Forest. Happy days!

So far this might read like a barely disguised promo piece for BrewDog, coinciding with us announcing their co-founder as one of our headline speakers (how dare you for thinking that!). Actually it’s just an illustration of why we rate BrewDog so highly, neatly encapsulated in two recent examples.

We believe in meeting the needs of today, while enhancing the ability of future generations to meet the needs of tomorrow, and BrewDog are a perfect example of a business doing just that.

Sure, they never miss a chance to get some easy publicity. They’re the absolute masters of it. And yes, they’ve made a few missteps along the way. Who hasn’t?

But when you cut through all the PR and noise, what’s left is a fast growing, fantastically well run company with a great product, who are committed to changing the world for the better. Who wouldn’t be inspired by that?

Incase it wasn't blindingly obvious by now, we're delighted to announce that Brewdog's Co-founder and CEO James Watt will be joining us on our virtual stage alongside Scottish business powerhouse and philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter.

Register today and join us from wherever you are for everything you need to start, grow and thrive in business!