Other companies talk about their environmental footprint. At Molson Coors, the sustainability message is conveyed by a "beer print" -- the positive and negative impacts the company can have on the people and the environment.

For a company that describes its corporate culture and values as "Our Brew" and promotes water conservation in a campaign called "Every Ripple, Every Drop," using the beer print imagery seems like a natural.

Perhaps, but coming up with the concept didn't occur overnight, according to Bart Alexander, Molson Coors' chief corporate responsibility officer. I asked Alexander for the story behind the beer print. Here are highlights from our conversation:

History

To fully understand the beer print, it's helpful to be acquainted the history of Molson Coors, according to Alexander.

The firm brings together the legacy of the U.K.'s Bass brewing company and Canada's Molson brewery, both founded in the 18th century, and the firm established by Adolph Coors, who tapped the waters at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in the 19th century to create his brand.

In 2002, Coors brought Bass under its aegis by acquiring Bass Brewers' business in England and Wales. In 2005, Coors and Molson combined forces in what the company termed as a merger of equals. And in 2008, Molson Coors began a joint venture with SABMiller, called MillerCoors, to combine their businesses in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

A New Vision and BHAGs

The same year, there was another significant change, Peter Swinburn, who started in the beer business at Bass in the 1970s in Wales, became CEO of Molson Coors.

"Peter wanted to sit down with the organization and put together a new strategic plan for the company," said Alexander. "He established a global vision. He established a framework for how we see ourselves, which we call 'Our Brew.' "

With Swinburn at helm, the company also laid out the steps it wanted to take to achieve that vision, Alexander said. "I think most people would call them strategic platforms.," he said. "We called them BHAGs -- big, hairy, audacious goals."

There were four. The first two were typical for any business: profit growth and growth of strategic brands. "The other two were a bit non-conventional," said Alexander. They called for having the most engaged workforce in the beer industry and achieving recognition as "being world class in corporate responsibility."

Taking Steps Forward and Then ...

The company set about pursuing the BHAGs. It pushed the framework for success across the lines of business, identified stakeholders -- investors, employees, retail customers, consumers and communities  -- and sought to better connect with them.

The firm had begun reporting to the Carbon Disclosure Project in 2005, and by 2009 the company's bolstered efforts in corporate social responsibility started getting attention.

"OK, so at this point, we are now talking to our senior management team, and we're talking to our employees, and we put up our website, we put up our CR report, and we're starting to get recognition for what we're doing," said Alexander. "I have to say what we found was that the CR community really liked what we were doing, understood it. They liked all the matrices, all the complexity of all the work we were doing. They saw that we were being comprehensive.

"But I want to be honest to say, internally, at that point, a lot of people -- a lot of our management and our employees -- said, 'We don't get it. This seems very complicated.' And, quite honestly, that was very confusing to me because I knew our employees and our leadership team."

The workforce and its managers had endorsed the BHAGs, he said, and in an annual survey, employees said they considered the company world class for its social and environmental commitments. Yet they didn't understand what the company was doing to make good on those commitments or their roles in helping to make that happen.

Next Page: Learning the value of keeping things simple.