McDonald's – Zezheng Xu – 2022

Goals

McDonald’s, one of the largest restaurant chains in the world, is a pioneer in the concept of green development. McDonald’s China invited Zezheng Xu to design a full life-cycle framework for green restaurants, track and optimize the energy saving potential of restaurant behaviors, and contribute to China’s carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.

Solutions

Zezheng Xu designed four projects to address the challenges:

• Electricity price and policy research. Xu Zezheng collated national and local electricity price data, conducted a perspective analysis of electricity price fluctuations in conjunction with relevant policies, and conducted research on green electricity standards.
• Green restaurant standards. By combining domestic and international standards with McDonald’s existing measures, Zezheng Xu developed a framework for McDonald’s Green Restaurant Standards to help the restaurants achieve full life-cycle carbon neutrality.
• Carbon neutrality policy research. Zezheng Xu investigated and analyzed the national and local carbon neutrality policies in China in the past two years, and developed corresponding countermeasures in line with the needs of McDonald’s stores.
• Restaurant behavioral energy saving. Zezheng Xu provided some advice for the behavioral energy saving management tool, Energy Manager, helping increase the usage of the tool among staff, and motivate them to save energy.

Potential Impact

Zezheng Xu’s research on China’s carbon neutrality policy will help McDonald’s China achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, and the proposed green restaurant framework will help McDonald’s achieve a successful green restaurant layout in China.