Arby’s Restaurant Group Inc. (ARG), franchisor of the quick-service chain with nearly 3,400 Arby’s restaurants worldwide, announced energy reduction savings as part of a company-wide effort to lessen environmental impact. The sustainability efforts are a key component in Arby’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy.
ARG achieved a 7.6 percent reduction in Energy Use Intensity, a unit of measurement for analyzing a building’s energy use, as a result of a variety of energy initiatives implemented in 2013 as part of the Efficiency Matters program. Efficiency Matters is a cost-saving energy management platform developed to help improve efficiencies in restaurants and reduce energy consumption and associated environmental and community impacts.
“ARG is committed to the reduction of energy usage within our restaurants,” says George Condos, ARG president and chief operating officer. “As a brand, we strive to continuously improve our performance and work towards energy-efficient best practices where cost-effective. Managing energy as a controllable expense gives Arby’s a competitive advantage, improves the bottom line and helps us to be responsible corporate citizens. In short, efficiency matters.”
In 2013–2014, ARG focused on eight key energy initiatives, including:
1. Implemented a new on/off schedule
2. Adjusted hot water heater controls
3. Installed aerators on hand sinks
4. Installed low-flow spray valves in sanitizing sinks
5. Converted evaporators of walk-in boxes (WIBs) to electronically commutated motors
6. Installed strip curtains in the same WIBs
7. Converted outdoor HID lights to LED lights
8. Introduced a new asset management system; Powerhouse Dynamic’s SiteSage (formally eMonitor).
ARG continues to minimize the impact on the environment through the efficient use of energy. Between 2011 and 2013, the company made the following energy and resource savings:
- 90,247,788 kilowatt hours (kWh) in electricity, which equates to: 62,230 MTCO2e: (metric tons of carbon dioxide)
- 303,106 Therms (natural gas), which equates to CO2 emissions from consuming over 80,000 gallons of gasoline
- 75,761 k-gals of water, which equates to enough water to fill 115 Olympic-sized pools
To achieve these savings, ARG implemented a number of energy efficiency upgrades including the following lighting enhancements in restaurants with plans for more:
- Neon to LED banding in 70 restaurants with savings of 549,500 kWh
- T12 to T8 interior lighting in 200 restaurants with savings of 5,400, 000 kWh
- HID (High Intensity Discharge) to LED exterior lighting in 102 restaurants with
- savings of 1,161,576 kWh
Overall, the sum of the savings between 2011 and 2013 has provided significant environmental benefits equivalent to:
- Removing over 13,000 passenger cars from the road for one year
- Avoiding the emissions from almost 6,000 homes’ energy use for one year
- Growing over 1.6 million tree seedlings for 10 years.
ARG ‘s energy efficiency partners, including Ecova and Powerhouse Dynamics, have been instrumental in helping the Arby’s brand realize these cost and energy savings. ARG has set a goal of achieving 15 percent Energy Use Intensity reduction by 2015 in company-owned restaurants versus a 2011 baseline and plans to achieve the energy reduction goals with guidelines and initiatives to donsider energy efficiency in all operations and decision-making processes; create a culture that drives continual improvement in energy performance; improves productivity and reduces environmental impacts through regular review of current activities; procure equipment in the most energy-efficient and cost-effective manner; and ensure all levels of the organization share responsibility in the implementation of this goal.
