McDonald’s Planet Champions: The People Behind the Programs

[#1]

Recently, McDonald’s published the 2012 Global Best of Green, our third catalogue of some 90 leading environmental best practices that make our restaurants, and our business, more sustainable.

This year, we collaborated with outside experts from Business for Social Responsibility, Ceres, Conservation International and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to select the “best of the best” across all eight categories included in the report: Energy, Packaging, Anti-littering, Recycling & Waste Reduction, Logistics, Communications, Greening our Restaurants and Greening the Workplace. The Planet Champion winner for Anti-littering was Leading the Way Toward Cleaner Streets in Australia. Through a focus on litter reduction for more than 20 years, McDonald’s Australia has continued to engage its restaurant employees, staff and customers to control the impacts of litter around restaurants in Australia in innovative and effective ways.

Adrian Cullen, the National Environmental Manager for McDonald’s Australia, oversees this program and provides his thoughts on the program and the importance environmental responsibility plays in the company’s long term success.

1)      McDonald’s Australia has been focusing on litter reduction as a key environmental priority for more than two decades. Why is this such an important issue for the company?

• Through our nationwide Clean Streets programs we have a longstanding commitment to educating customers on the importance of discarding their litter appropriately as well as to cleaning up inappropriately discarded litter in and around our restaurants. To reduce the amount of McDonald’s litter on surrounding footpaths, parks and streets, we stepped up our commitment and introduced a litter patrol tool kit, which involves restaurant crew picking up McDonald’s and other litter beyond the restaurant boundary.
• Litter is a topic of great importance to our customers and community stakeholders. Some key facts:
  • Litter, packaging and recycling are the environmental issues our customers most want us to address.
  •  We are in our 21^st year of a partnership with ‘Clean Up Australia Day’ – a national volunteer initiative to clean up litter that involves participation from our restaurant crew and corporate staff

2)      What other environmental issues does McDonald’s Australia consider key to its long-term success? What are you doing to improve your performance against these priorities?

• Waste Recycling – we are constantly looking at opportunities to use our waste as a resource whether it be through the recycling of cardboard or conducting a back of house recycling trial which involves pulling our organics out of the waste stream. McDonald’s Australia aims to divert as much of our waste as possible from going to landfill.
• Energy Efficiency – to maximize opportunities for operational efficiency and minimize environmental impacts of our restaurants.  The means evaluating how we can operate our restaurants more efficiently through the introduction of best practice procedures, investing in equipment and exploring opportunities which include - High Efficiency HVAC systems, LED lighting and renewable energies. 
• Sustainable Building and Design –McDonald’s Australia will aim to become the first QSR in Australia to build an accredited 4 Star Green Restaurant. The design and construction of an accredited Green Star McDonald’s restaurant will put us ahead of our competitors and at the forefront of this increasingly important area for business.  Partnering with the Green Building Council of Australia, the new restaurant features a range of Green Building Initiatives that target waste, water and energy efficiencies.

3)      As McDonald’s Australia’s National Environmental Manager, what do you see as the company’s biggest challenges and opportunities to greening its restaurants and the business as a whole?

• Cultural habits around energy efficiency and waste recycling
• Limited infrastructure to achieve ambitious environmental goals such as zero waste to landfill
• There will be opportunities for McDonald’s Australia to develop new operations that help protect the environment; reduce energy, materials, and water consumption, and minimise waste and pollution.  Research and development and innovation will give rise to new business relationships, the need for new diagnostic tools, delivery of new training and skills and even new business finance models.
• Combining innovative thinking to help reduce the use of natural raw resources and the implementation of strategy to produce less waste going to landfill is an exciting challenge for sustainable businesses practice.
• We are going to continue to grow as a business and will require new equipment, greater capacity (dual and tandem drive thrus) so the challenge will be to mitigate these increases and operate more efficiently

[#2]

Not only will it be extrememly beneficial for the environment and community, but it would also lead to more profits while at the same time reduce waste.  My idea is to have McDonalds start selling/incorporating a REUSABLE McDonalds cup that customers can purchase that can be used an infinite amount of times vs the "one use plastic cups" you throw away when you are done.  That's my opinion anyway.  I personally work at a McDonalds and I can see a HUGE improvement on the cost of buying those paper and plastic cups all the time when you can save so much money by selling reusable cups that the customer can reuse all the time.

[#3]

Hey..

My Name is Anguti Kristiansen. I'm from Greenland.

I don't know where to go if I will ask someone. Does someone know if there's a plan to open a Mcdonald's in Greenland. I think it's a good Idea

[#4]

Gentlemen:

Considering the present dietary climate, I, as a psychologist for nearly 60 years, differ greatly from the predominent view of the health risks ascribed to McDonald's products. At age 90 I still inulge, along with my 81 year old love, in a weekly visit to McDonald  to consume a double cheeseburger and fries.  Yes, I believe there are other reasons that causes our society's general health deterioration that, in my opinion, are far removed from McDonald's menu.

Let me know whether you are interested in discussing this further.

Kurt Meyer

[#5]

Hi Anguti,

In many countries around the world we do not have a presence and our current strategy is to focus on the markets where we do business. No firm date has been established for the opening of new markets.

Thanks for your question.

[#6]

I am excited to know McDonald’s is making big efforts to keep the streets clean in Australia.  I hope they will consider removing the most dangerous litter on the streets.  I tried to determine how many miles are traveled each year by McDonald’s delivery trucks but I was not able to find this figure.  I can only imagine all those odometers add up to be very large number of miles traveled.  Our streets are polluted with hazardous contaminants like break dust, tire wear, fluids from the engine, road wear.  These microscopic particles are ingested and making a lot of people sick.  When it rains, the road pollution ends up in oceans, rivers and lakes, killing reefs and harming sea life.  What a fantastic example McDonald’s could be if they equipped all their trucks with road pollution filters.  They are inexpensive and the responsible thing to do as they collect the road pollution before it can cause harm.