The parent company of Miller Lite, which garnered social media backlash for recently publishing a feminist beer commercial, has advanced several climate and diversity efforts in recent years.
Miller Lite partnered with female comedian Ilana Glazer for a Women’s History Month advertisement which blasted the beverage industry’s past objectification, announcing efforts to donate fertilizer so that female brewers could grow hops, the flowers used as a bittering and stability agent in beer. Enthusiasts of the beverage, many of whom were already frustrated by the partnership between self-described transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney and rival beer brand Bud Light, criticized the feminist advertisement online.
A spokesperson for Molson Coors, the Canadian-American firm which owns Miller Lite, said in a statement this week that the advertisement should not be “remotely controversial” and told customers to “appreciate the humor” of the marketing campaign.
Anheuser-Busch, the company which controls Bud Light, has been accused of favoring racial minorities in their hiring practices, routinely caving to the LGBTQ activist groups, and endorsing the environmental, social, and corporate governance movement, also known as ESG. Molson Coors, which also owns brands such as Coors Light and Blue Moon, likewise has several commitments to foster diversity and advance various social objectives.
Molson Coors vowed in its most recent annual ESG report to improve “women workforce representation globally” and track the percentages of board members, senior managers, and salaried employees who are females. Molson Coors meanwhile provides employees and their dependents in Canada with “gender-affirming treatment,” an apparent reference to hormone blockers and sex change operations, as part of their healthcare coverage.
The Daily Wire asked Molson Coors how the firm defines the word “woman.” This article will be updated with any response.
With respect to racial diversity, on the other hand, Molson Coors said in the report that the firm “supports dozens of black, indigenous and people of color” organizations that are “dedicated to social justice.” The company, which likewise monitored how many “people of color” were employed across managerial levels, established a goal to spend $1 billion with “diverse suppliers” in the Americas between 2021 and 2023.
“Leading with our most important value to put people first, we continue to take steps forward on our DEI journey,” Molson Coors CEO Gavin Hattersley said in a statement prominently featured on the company’s website. “For it is only through the unique experiences and perspectives from our people that we will drive long-term change for our company, our communities and society as a whole.”
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Molson Coors also established several commitments related to climate change and the environment, striving to reduce carbon emissions by 50% in direct operations and 25% across its value chain. In its most recent publicly filed annual report, the firm stated that “climate change and other weather events may negatively affect our business and financial results.”
Skeptics of the ESG movement contend that the philosophy emphasizes political and social causes, such as decreasing carbon emissions or diversifying company leadership, in a manner that distracts from profitability. ESG funds suffered amid last year’s underperformance among technology firms, which ESG investors tend to favor because of their emphasis on corporate social responsibility, and overperformance among energy companies, which ESG managers tend to disdain because of their dislike for industries with heavy carbon emissions.