Browse
Engage
Research
McDonald's vice president for corporate responsibility went to the Virtual Energy Forum this week to offer up his company's take on energy management, green building and sustainability.
The Virtual Energy Forum concludes today with its second day of online workshops and presentations, which are being archived and are available at VirtualEnergyForum.com. Access to the forum and its on-demand material is free. GreenBiz is one of the many sponsors of the forum.
Speaking about the importance of environmental responsibility and responding to questions about how to pursue goals despite troubled economic times, McDonald's Vice President for Corporate Responsibility Bob Langert told moderator Lou Canellis that it's a matter of sticking to principles.
"If a company truly holds a value, it's always going to be there," Langert said. "Ray Kroc, the founder of our company, said, 'Hey we're gonna have principles when we're poor, and we're gonna have principles when we're successful.' "
Langert's nearly hourlong conversation with Canellis focused on "Adding Business Value Through Energy Management and Sustainability."
Depending on one's point of view, energy can deemed be a sweet spot or a pressure point for McDonald's.
The company spends more than $1.5 billion a year around the world to power its restaurants. About 80 percent of an average restaurant's energy use is devoted to heating and cooling systems and running cooking appliances. Lighting is another significant draw.
According to Langert, his company views energy management as an opportunity.
"Energy is really our No. 1 issue," he said. "When you look at the dollars we spend, and the impact we have on the environment, and the progress we can make to do better, and use our size and influence to make a difference, it's energy."
To that end, Langert said, the company is addressing energy management on a number of fronts:
o - It's running a pilot project with a handful of recently built green restaurants. The one completed in Chicago in August has a green roof, a permeable parking lot, a 20,000-gallon underground cistern to capture runoff water, LED lighting outside and a daylight harvesting system inside. Elsewhere green stores are planned for Brazil, France, Canada and Germany.
o - Internally, it provides employee education and operates a popular Energy All-Star recognition program that showcases innovations, best practices and outstanding efforts on the part of workers;
o - Externally, the company requires its suppliers to join McDonald's in working to improve any aspect of their business operation that affects the environment. The company does not mandate goals, but does require suppliers to provide annual measurements to McDonald's in four environmental areas: energy use, water consumption, waste and recycling, and air pollution.
"Our philosophy is not to pressure our suppliers, or to prescribe or or to mandate," Langert said. "We have a very collaborative relationbship. For us, advancing the environment is good business, we want our suppliers to share those values so we incorporate the environment as part of doing business with McDonald's."
Excellent Effort
Glad to see MceeD's getting in on the act. Any effort shown in saving energy is good effort.
What about water?
Another great area where they could make a positive impact on the environment would be to replace old, inefficient toilets with Dual Flush toilets. The Hilton Palacio hotel in San Antonio for example replaced 470 toilets with Caroma Dual Flush Sydney 305 elongated toilets and saved 6 Million gallons of water in 8 months. Their maintenance calls also reduced 80% and guest complaints dropped more than 90% (see case studies here http://www.caromausa.com/Caroma-case-studies.)
Sustainability
Although these efforts from McDonald's are applauded, these are the low-hanging fruits which are easy to implement. If we look at the other side of the sustainability coin (that is, the social side) the company still fails to address the obesity and health associated issues of its products.
Grace Barrasso
Agree
This is a very low touch approach by MCDonalds - the issue for them is probably beef then energy. Not to mention the waste from all those takeaway containers.
Put a price on carbon and these guys would ratchet up there activity. A BigMac would certainly be more expensive under cap and trade.
Huh?
They built a handful of green restaurants, they show some Powerpoint to some employees, and they pressure their suppliers.
Way to go.
Virtual Energy Forum is Great
Nice to see that McDonalds and other companies (Marriott, Duke Energy, Steelcase, Staples) are participating in the Virtual Energy Forum.
It's a great event. I enjoyed the first one last spring and this one's even better. What's not to like... its free and don't have to travel to it since its "Virtual" www.virtualenergyforum.com
McDonald's energy use and sustainability
I'm glad that McDonald's is aware of its energy consumption in the heating/cooling and lighting area. But they need to look at a few other nagging areas of energy use:
1. Their toys for the Happy meals get used by a child for about 20 seconds before the child loses interest. What a waste of resources! Can't McDonald's give a free ice cream cone instead? If not, is there such thing as toys made from bio-degradable plastic that would go into your green (city compost) bin?
2. If someone were to do a study, I wonder where the methane produced by all the cows that provide meat and milk for the company would rank against the energy consumption of the heating and cooling systems in terms of GHG contributions? Given the number of cows McDonald's uses and the increased potency of methane versus CO2, it's an area that will need study at some point.