McDonalds Sweden Case Study

McDonald's Sweden is working to find innovative ways of providing fast, healthy, low-cost food for the majority of the people, while functioning as a sustainable operation - financially, socially, and environmentally. With the help of The Natural Step Sweden and 8,000 committed employees, in just five years McDonald's Sweden has reduced costs through numerous eco-efficiency programs, spurred new innovations, motivated and energized staff, and transformed their public image.

By studying the fundamental nature of their business through the lens of the TNS framework, McDonald's Sweden is moving beyond eco-efficency. Today, approximately half of the 160 Swedish McDonald's, the bakery, and the national headquarters run on renewable energy - hydropower. All new restaurants use water pipes made of recycled plastic instead of copper, wood framing instead of steel framing, and wood foundations instead of concrete foundations - overall, reducing construction material use by 5-10 percent. Research is currently underway at seven restaurants to develop a biological filter to clean exhaust from fry stations. The new technology uses bacteria to eat the oil and reuses remaining clean air to heat their restaurants. In addition, McDonald's Sweden serves organic milk and beef, recycles 97 percent of all restaurant waste, has significantly reduced distribution distances helping to cut fuel costs by over 30 percent, and has eliminated the need for over 1,200 tonnes of packaging material by changing to smarter packaging.

In Sweden, McDonald's occupies 75 percent of the fast-food hamburger market and generated revenues of approximately $350 million in 1998. The company has three primary business objectives - satisfied employees, satisfied customers, and profits - and understands that by developing and investing in the first, the rest will follow. According to Mats Lederhausen, Managing Director for McDonald's Sweden, "If you take all the resources you have as a company, the only thing that counts today is the human energy that you can pull together and with which you can do anything." As stated in the company's Environment Program, "There is one very simple reason that McDonald's Sweden is concerned with the environment: the future. The future for us as people, and for our company. Everything we eat and everything we make and everything we sell comes directly from our earth.

Nature is, in theory as well as in practice, our livelihood." In 1993, just as Lederhausen was settling into his new position, Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt addressed the company's top management in a two-day course on The Natural Step and sustainability.