CHICAGO - McDonald's Corp. , the world's largest fast food chain, said yesterday it would reduce energy use at its U.S. restaurants by 10 percent, allowing its 12,500 restaurants to save up to $3,000 to $4,000 each year in energy costs.
The pledge came as McDonald's and the nonprofit environmental advocacy group Environmental Defence Fund marked the tenth anniversary of an alliance formed in part to do away with the fast food giant's infamous polystyrene foam "clamshell" sandwich boxes.
McDonald's said there was no timetable yet for the energy use reduction project or how it would be carried out, but it was expected to take several years.
"It is a question of years, but the goal is important one and the benefits to the environment and McDonald's system are significant," Jack Greenberg, chairman and chief executive officer of Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald's said during a conference call with reporters.
In the last 10 years, the company has installed energy-efficient lights in 6,000 McDonald's restaurants, saving 510 million kilowatt hours and 4,000 tons of greenhouse gases, it said.
The company is also testing a McDonald's restaurant in Bensenville, Ill. that conserves energy through high-efficiency air conditioning units, automatic lights that turn off when an employee leaves the walk-in cooler and skylights that let in natural light among other things.
The energy reduction efforts will be voluntary for the company's franchisees, who own about 85 percent of the company's U.S. restaurants.
A San Diego, Calif.-based consultant who works with McDonald's franchisees said that owners would get behind the energy initiative provided it does not involve any high up-front costs.
"If it's a programme to save operating costs, they'll get behind it," restaurant consultant Dick Adams said.
McDonald's, which has more than 25,000 restaurants throughout the world, is often a target of environmental activists who protest against the company's use of natural resources.
Over the course of its alliance with EDF, McDonald's said its has eliminated 150,000 tons of McDonald's packaging through the redesign or reduction of material used to make straws, napkins, sandwich packaging and other items.
The company also said it has recycled more than one million tons of corrugated cardboard used to ship products to its restaurants.
McDonald's shares were off 6/16 at 41-9/16 in trade on the New York Stock Exchange.