At McDonald’s, continuous improvement is one of our core Values and the basis for everything we do. As we like to say, “It’s not real until it is real in the restaurants,” and it is here where our commitment to environmental sustainability truly comes to life.

As McDonald’s Chief Restaurant Officer, I am passionate about sustainability – it’s important to both our planet and our success as a business.

Sustainability is all about being better tomorrow than we are today. As a company, we are focused on concurrently increasing efficiency and decreasing waste. Achieving these goals reduces our costs, makes us a more modern and appealing company in the eyes of our people and our consumers and increases trust in our brand.

As a global company, we operate in a wide range of business environments. Some McDonald’s markets are further along on their environmental innovations than others. This is natural and, in the long run, it helps us leverage the great strengths of the McDonald’s System – continuous innovation, best-practices sharing and maintaining our focus on the issues that matter most to our customers and the communities we serve.

The following Global Best of Green case studies really shine a light on the great advances that are happening across the McDonald’s System. Here you will read about how being a responsible and sustainable company creates shared value for both our company and our planet. I encourage you to read and learn about the initiatives that are working in other markets, and then build upon and implement those initiatives where they make sense in your own markets at the restaurant level and in the workplace.

To those who have already contributed your talent and hard work to these efforts, thank you. I know we will continue to build on the great work that is already underway.