136: Beer (and Everyone) Still Has a Diversity Problem with Ren Navarro

If you’ve listened to AnthroDish regularly over the last few years, you’ll know that Ren Navarro is a champion of diversity and inclusion within the beer industry and beyond. When I first interviewed Ren back in 2020, we looked at her Canadian consulting services through B.Diversity, and the diversity problem within craft beer in Ontario. We’ve lived truly a lifetime of unprecedented times since then: we saw the proliferation of Black Lives Matter movements and heavy pressure for more equitable change, and DEI initiatives take stronger footing through many industries reckoning with their own complicity. Yet… we’re also living in a period where affirmative action has been struck down in America, and DEI is making headlines because CEOs have decided they’re done with it. 

So what does this mean for people like Ren who have built their businesses through this necessary and ongoing work? Who helps the activists pushing for safer and more supportive communities? What do the follow-up sessions look like for breweries that had DEI consults? Ren’s here to explore these questions, as well as the very real challenges that come with this work for her: burnout in a landscape where her job is good when things are bad in the world.

Learn More From Ren: 

• BDiversity Group Website: https://bdiversitygroup.com/ 
• Ren Instagram: @bdiversitygroup
• What Ales Us Trailer

Resources Ren Shared in Episode:

• Book - Taking a Break from Saving the World: A Conservationist's Journey from Burnout to Balance
• Emily and Amelia Nagowski interview on burnout
• Book - The Burnout Challenge