McDonald's Sweden is working to find innovative ways to provide fast, healthy and low-cost food for the most people, while operating as a sustainable operation - financially, socially and environmentally. With the help of The Natural Step Sweden and 8,000 committed employees, in just five years McDonald's Sweden has reduced costs through numerous eco-efficiency programs, stimulated new innovations, motivated and challenged staff and transformed its public image. By studying the fundamental nature of its business through the lens of the TNS framework, McDonald's Sweden is going beyond eco-efficiency. Today, about half of Sweden's 160 McDonald's, bakeries and national locations run on renewable energy: hydropower. All new restaurants use water pipes made of recycled plastic instead of copper, wooden structures instead of steel, and wooden foundations instead of concrete, overall reducing the use of building materials by 5-10%. Research is currently underway in seven restaurants to develop a biological filter to clean exhaust gases from frying stations. The new technology uses bacteria to eat the oil and reuses the remaining clean air to heat restaurants. Additionally, McDonald's Sweden serves organic milk and beef, recycles 97% of all restaurant waste, has significantly reduced distribution distances helping to reduce fuel costs by more than 30%, and has eliminated the need for more than 1,200 tons of packaging material by switching to smarter systems. packaging. In Sweden, McDonald's occupies 75% of the fast food hamburger market and generated sales of approximately $350 million in 1998. The company has three primary business objectives: satisfied employees, satisfied customers and profits, and understands that by developing and investing in the first the rest will follow. According to Mats Lederhausen, CEO of McDonald's Sweden, "If you take all the resources you have as a company, the only thing that matters today is the human energy that you can put together and with which you can do anything." As stated in the company's Environmental Program, "There is a very simple reason why McDonald's Sweden cares about the environment: the future. The future for us as people and for our company. Everything we eat, everything we produce and everything we sell" comes directly from our land. Nature is, in theory as well as in practice, our livelihood." In 1993, just as Lederhausen was settling into his new position, Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt addressed the company's top management in a two-hour course days on The Natural Step and sustainability.