McDonald's – Shimeng Wang – 2021

Goals

McDonald’s, one of the largest restaurant chains in the world, has committed themselves to sustainability. McDonald’s China enlisted Shimeng Wang to help them plan strategic roadmaps towards carbon peak and neutrality goals and assess the feasibility of a “Net-Zero Energy Flagship” restaurant.

Solutions

• Plan a whole carbon peak and neutrality roadmap for McDonald’s China, including the impacts and risks of the carbon goals and the strategies to realize the carbon goals. The fellow collected all the relevant policies of Chinese carbon peak and neutrality, organized materials of iconic companies’ environmental reports, and finally formed a complete roadmap.
• Assess the feasibility of building a “Net-Zero Energy Flagship” restaurant in four key cities in China and conduct financial analysis. The fellow evaluated the on-site solar generation across key metrics such as investment, payback, and energy savings.
• Assess the feasibility of retrofitting an existing restaurant to achieve net-zero energy operation and conduct financial analysis. The fellow screened restaurants across their energy performance and site plans and identified three possible restaurants for retrofit.

Potential Impact

The roadmap Wang proposed will help McDonald’s China achieve their carbon peak and neutrality goals before 2030 and 2060. If the net-zero restaurant was successfully opened, McDonald’s China could save 400,000 kWh of electricity per year and offset 354 tons of CO2 emissions in total. If the net-zero restaurant was promoted nationwide, the company could save 31 million kWh and 20,043 tons of CO2 emissions per year.