2Sustain

Yum! Brands, Inc., the largest restaurant company in the world, released its first corporate responsibility report last week. Yum, based in Louisville, Kentucky, is the parent of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, and others, and the company includes nearly 36,00  restaurants in more than 110 countries and territories.

The 36-page report, titled “Serving the World,” reviews Yum’s social, environmental, and economic impact worldwide. Discussion about the environment focuses primarily on what the company lists as its four greatest challenges: energy use in their restaurants, waste management, packaging, and sustainable building design.

According to the report, Yum’s U.S. company-owned restaurants have been aggressively working to reduce energy consumption over the past two years. They have achieved total annualized savings of 60,000 metric tons of CO2 –an amount that is 18% above their goal.

In addition, in 2006, Yum established the Environmental Leadership Council (ELC), a leadership team charged with establishing green strategies and identifying beneficial environmental opportunities. The ELC has helped Yum identify seven areas of strategic focus, including:

• Energy efficiency, reduction, and procurement. Yum’s goal is to reduce energy use by 12% over the next two years in U.S. company-owned restaurants, and by 10% by 2012 in other restaurants worldwide.

•  Waste Management. The company plans to increase recycling, improve renewable efforts, and reduce solid waste volume at both restaurants and at restaurant support centers. (This includes initiatives for the conversion of waste cooking oil to alternative fuels, like biodiesel.)

•  Packaging. Yum is working to minimize the impact of packaging manufacturing processes while also maximizing packaging recyclability.

• Sustainable Building Design. These efforts include using high efficiency heating and cooling systems, as well as innovative restaurant fryers and ice machines. Yum is also pursuing restaurant designs that are LEED-certified.

• Equipment. According to the report, Yum plans to adopt kitchen equipment improvements that can maximize both energy and cost savings.

• Restaurant education. The company has made a commitment to communicate best practices and operating procedure improvements throughout the system.

• Monitoring and reporting. Yum says measurement and monitoring will guide its future actions.

Here’s yet another Fortune 500 company that is now on its way to a more sustainable future, and that’s good news for all of us. I particularly liked this statement that Yum! included in its report. “Climate change is one of the most important issues now facing the world, and we are aware of the urgency for action,” it reads. “We feel that we have only just begun to unleash the potential of our business to make a positive impact on the environment. We’re moving forward and aggressively working to determine the fastest way to accomplish our goals.”