Responses by David Martin Angelus, creative director, BETC.

Background: Budweiser’s Ground Cooler is the first underground cooling system that goes below 6°C (43°F) without the need for a power supply. Budweiser has created this low-tech device to help entrepreneurs and aspiring store owners in developing countries, where 48 percent of the population lacks a consistent access to electricity, much less sustainable cooling solutions. With this innovation, the ground becomes the refrigerator. In partnership with engineering studio frog, we have modernized traditional Egyptian and Indus techniques: geothermic evaporation and acceleration of cold air, known as the Venturi effect. Despite numerous attempts to update these, The Ground Cooler is the only solution that successfully reaches the 6°C mark.

Design thinking: With the rise in global temperatures, the demand for cold beverages has increased by 14 percent. And global warming amplifies existing poor living conditions in developing countries that are now regularly affected by heat waves. Cold beverages help reduce sweating and body temperature. Currently, beer cooling represents approximately 25 percent of Budweiser parent company AB InBev’s carbon emissions, which the Ground Cooler could contribute to alleviating.

Challenges: Hitting the goal of 6°C. Despite starting from existing techniques and carrying multiple studies to estimate results, our objective was significantly lower than what previous attempts had reached—but we succeeded with the Ground Cooler.

Favorite details: When the first Ground Cooler was installed, locals confirmed that such a solution would improve their ability to open and own stores and that they could create their own from scratch with materials available to them. We take pride in this feedback, as it is exactly what we aimed for: offering a device that could help overcome electrical obstacles for local entrepreneurs.

New lessons: What we learned with this project was that if we harness the power and energy the Earth provides with technology, we can find many sustainable solutions to a lot of the issues we face today. Sometimes, brands need to lead by example to show our leaders and communities that there are solutions to these massive problems like global warming. Projects like the Ground Cooler can open people’s minds to sustainable solutions and encourage communities to embrace change.

Visual influences: Design-wise, we wanted to make sure this would be replicable by local communities—hence, the use of natural components—and would fit into the local landscape. But we wanted the cooler to also serve as a space to bring people together, so we created an umbrella-like shape to allow customers to hide from the sun.

Time constraints: As the device is the result of gathering existing techniques and trying to combine and improve them to reach our initial goal, we managed to develop a functioning system within available timings. Yet, we are looking to make it lighter and less expensive in order to scale it and make it available to aspiring storeowners worldwide.

betc.com