Founder Colin Beal’s path to creating Low Carbon Beef isn’t a straight one. But it is this interesting path that makes him absolutely the right inventor for our time, a time in which every industry can and must do its part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Like many of his fellow cattlemen and women, Beal is frustrated by people who assert, erroneously, cattle are a primary cause of climate change. He’s also frustrated by people who deny global warming. As a scientist, Dr. Beal will tell you that almost everything we do – from the trucks we drive to the strawberries we eat to the shirts we wear – generates greenhouse gases.
But frustration serves no purpose, he says. We must find solutions.
Low Carbon Beef is a solution. A solution that is …
Part product of his upbringing – Beal grew up working Angus cattle with his father, Dr. W.E. “Bill” Beal, who was an animal science professor at Virginia Tech, where he managed a beef cattle research herd, in addition to operating Beal Cattle Enterprises and consulting for Gardiner Angus Ranch.
Part product of his education – Beal completed his Ph.D. in engineering at the University of Texas at Austin studying alternative fuel production from microalgae when everyone was in search of alternatives to high-priced oil. In his dissertation, he concluded generating fuel from algae is ineffective as it requires more energy than it produces, which sent him searching for solutions to improve algal fuels - a challenge Beal still works on to this day with his engineering company.
Part product of his business acumen – Post-doc, Beal made a career out of mapping life-cycle assessments for clients including NASA, Cornell, Duke, and others while working as a ranch hand and range rider for commercial ranches in Wyoming. A solar panel mounted on his truck allowed him to feed data to his engineering clients from his solo post in the Rocky Mountains. Today, his consulting company has grown to a handful of engineers who do sustainability analysis for energy and agricultural products
Part product of his chosen way of life, ranching – When Beal started his engineering career, he didn’t expect to come back to ranching, but the ranching lifestyle called him. He now independently manages Beal Cattle Co., an Angus seedstock operation that uses artificial insemination and embryo transfer guided by a genetic selection computer program to breed more efficient, desirable cattle that have been sold to producers from Georgia to California.
So, somewhere between herding cattle, studying alternative energy, conducting life cycle assessments for the likes of NASA and Cornell for his engineering consulting business, and developing a nationally recognized seedstock operation, Low Carbon Beef was born.
Low Carbon Beef is the only lifecycle-based approach to certifying beef with a significantly reduced carbon footprint over U.S. baseline beef production. Just like the engineer who built it, Low Carbon Beef methodically analyzes and applies proven emission reducing tools at every step in the cattle lifecycle, quantifying carbon reductions and adding value to beef production and cattle farming.
