Craft brewery leaders for transformation towards sustainability? A case study of transformative qualities, and hindering or enabling factors for action in craft brewery leaders in Sweden and Germany.

Abstract: The internal dimension of an individual is a potential deep leverage point for a collective change toward sustainability that is currently overlooked. Especially in their professional context, certain individuals can create change beyond themselves and the enterprise subjected to them. The environment of individuals, however, influences the activated potential of individuals for contributing to this change. This thesis analyses the brewery leaders’ internal qualities to transform towards sustainability on an individual and collective level. Four cases of craft brewery leaders in Germany and Sweden were studied through participant observation in a workshop with craft beverage producers, focus groups and documentation on an online whiteboard. The first part of the study is looking for indicators of transformative qualities for change toward sustainability focusing on the individual’s professional role. The second part looks at hindering and enabling factors for actions upon these qualities. The transformative qualities were indicated to different extents. The main difference between the cases was the readiness and commitment to use their small enterprise as a way to contribute to collective change. Immaturity and lack of enabling environments were the main hindering factors. Networks with peers, consumers and academia were suggested as enabling factors.