Information and Inspiration Through Innovative Software

Representing 26 percent of the carbon footprint in 2005, energy consumption was the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions and the strategy’s principal focus, as well as the principal focus of McDonald’s France’s greenhouse gas reduction strategy.

In 2006, McDonald’s France designed interactive software, called EcoProgress. Accessible from the company’s Intranet, this tool enables each restaurant to:

- Learn about the key issues related to energy (as well as other environmental topics);

- Record its monthly energy consumption and compare it to other similar McDonald’s restaurants; and

- Benefit from specific advice and improvement tools, such as audit tools, a best-practices guide and an ignition plan for cooking equipment that suits each restaurant’s individual characteristics.

Thanks to this easy-to-use tool to manage fundamental data, users can improve their environmental practices. This was the first step in creating an overall environmental management system. In 2008, the software was completed to create the EcoProgress System:

- A human network: the EcoProgress participants

- An innovative way to lead the network: e-learning formation, a hotline crew dedicated to the participants, etc.

- A dynamic incentive with personal objectives as part of a yearly challenge (on reductions in electricity, water, etc.) that restaurants have to reach. McDonald’s France calls this “Défi EcoProgress.”

- Today, 97 percent of restaurants have EcoProgress participants

- To date, participants have made an average of 3,200 connections per month to the EcoProgress software

- 8,900 fire-up plans for kitchen equipment realized

- 8,800 audits filed for good practices

- 1,145 participants have already completed an e-learning session

- In 2011, more than 12 million kilowatt hours were saved thanks to the objectives set by the challenge (Défi EcoProgress) 

- Energy consumption became the third source of greenhouse gas emissions. This impact decreased by 53 percent between 2005 and 2011.