McDonald's Gradually Goes Green

By Michael Kanellos

McDonald's (MCD) isn't exactly moving into green voluntarily. A lot of its efforts have come because of shareholder pressure and negative public relations. But, like Wal-Mart (WMT) before it, the company is starting to see how saving energy and cutting out waste can help the bottom line. (It's why we put it in our top ten enterprise customers.)

The company released an 80-page report (pdf) on some of its worldwide efforts. Granted, most of these are in the experimental stage. But think about what would happen if McDonald's expanded some of these programs to its 30,000 plus restaurants. Some of the projects:

• It has put solar hot water heaters in four restaurants in Mexico. These have reduced the need for gas-heated hot water by 75 percent.

• A low volume oil fryer allows restaurants to cook with 40 percent less oil.

• U.S. restaurants are tinkering with a "fire-up" tool that allows kitchen equipment to be turned off and on to better match the times they are needed. On average, it can save $1,500 a year per restaurant. The company has also worked with Echelon on systems to control HVAC.

• Forty-six restaurants in Hamburg, Germany have been given high-efficiency flourescent lights. These have cut energy consumption by 11,000 kilowatt hours a year at each restaurant.

• Twenty-four restaurants in Sweden experienced an average 15 percent decline in energy costs after a ventilation system, that dynamically changes the HVAC system, with the pace of customer traffic.

• In Europe, 80 percent of packaging comes from renewable resources and 100 percent will be renewable by 2010.

• Here's a novel one. Until 2008, napkins for the Mexico restaurants were imported. It now has a pilot project to source recycled ones locally. I love simple stuff like that.

• Deep fat fryer drippings in Brazil and Portugal are recycled into biodiesel.

I haven't read through it completely and am dying to see if there's anything about PVC-free toys in Happy Meals or a new recyclable mesh for hats. But it should be interesting.

Comments

[PastTense]

It sounds like a PR gimmick. If McDonald's was going Green you would see chain-wide policies.

2009 May 19 06:35 PM

[Light Man]

I didn't know that heating hot water was "green" in way you do it. If the water is already hot, why heat it?

2009 May 19 09:31 PM

[La Marque]

Negative publicity or not, cutting the top line by many means increases the bottom line - the primary goal of any for-profit business.

2009 May 20 10:50 AM

[Barry in Mpls]

To PastTense thinking this is a PR gimmick - the benefit McDonald's has is being able to test out a variety of solutions across groups of stores to see what really works and what doesn't deliver enough return to be worth it.


On May 19 06:35 PM PastTense wrote:

> It sounds like a PR gimmick. If McDonald's was going Green you would
> see chain-wide policies.

2009 May 20 12:24 PM