Staff Photo by Leslie Huffman

The 25-year-old McDonald’s restaurant on Kildaire Farm Road was torn down and replaced in July by a “green McDonald’s”.  This is the third green McDonald’s store in the nation and the first for North Carolina.  The first two were in Savannah, Georgia and Chicago, Illinois.  The objective of this rebuild is to earn a Gold Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.  The Cary site is presently LEED registered and hoping for that Gold Certification.

“When the initial investment was made, we knew we had to make a reinvestment in the old building,” says Ric Richards, Owner and Operator (and local resident).  “It was determined more feasible to do a redo with a brand new restaurant.  Cary is the perfect community to built an environmentally friendly McDonald’s.  The Town leaders in Cary were very supportive.”

How green is it to tear down an existing building for a brand new one?  It’s hard to believe, but 99.1% of the old building was either reused or recycled.  The new building will use 45% less utilities and save 500,000 gallons of water a year.  This McDonald’s features green technologies like LED and solatube lighting, insulation made from recycled blue jeans (!), energy star appliances, tankless water heaters and furniture made from renewable resources like bamboo and soy beans.

“Most of the parts and equipment for the new building came from local suppliers and industries.  This helped us reduce our carbon footprint by buying local goods and reducing transportation costs,” says Richards.

Is a green McDonald’s a contradiction in terms?  McDonald’s has been linked to rainforest destruction by selling meats fed from deforested lands.  Cows produce 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions.  The meat industry itself is one of the leading contributors to climate change and McDonald’s is one of the largest beef consumers in the world.

While I applaud Mr. Richards for bringing this “green” concept to Cary, McDonald’s as a Corporation has a long way to go before it can call itself a green company.  McDonald’s is such a huge part of our culture, with 31,000 restaurants in 119 countries, that to really make an impact McDonald’s should require all franchises to be LEED Certified.  But I think any attempt by the company to mitigate their effect on the environment is helpful.

As far as green building goes, the new Cary McDonald’s is an excellent example of environmentally-conscious architecture.  This green McDonald’s is attempting to educate its patrons by posting messages and notes about its green design all over the restaurant.  They have also installed a flat screen Educational Dashboard that is designed to inform customers about the building and its environmental efforts.

Environmentally conscious construction like this helps to legitimize the green movement and can educate home owners by giving them ideas on how they can be more green in their own environment.  This type of building shows that McDonald’s Corporation is takings steps in the right direction.  In my opinion, the next “green frontier” for McDonald’s would be to make sure that all their restaurants were supplied with foods strictly from local farmers.

Tell us what you think.