Sustainable Restaurants

With more than 32,000 restaurants across the globe, we recognize the impact we can have on the environment. Alongside our franchisees, we are committed to enhancing environmental stewardship of our physical locations in the communities we serve and call home. We continue to innovate and explore ways to reduce our energy and water usage across our portfolio of brands.

We will continue to identify sustainable enhancements to our restaurants for further resource conservation and energy reduction.

Packaging, Recycling
& Waste

Our Restaurant
Experience

Resource
Stewardship

Packaging, Recycling & Waste

Across our family of brands, we are continuously evaluating our packaging, sourcing ways to improve it to best serve the interests of our guests, our planet, and our business. We proactively work with our suppliers to identify opportunities for innovation and increase the sustainability of our packaging. This includes decreasing the amount of single-use packaging in our system and increasing options that are recyclable, compostable, and/or made from certified materials.

We source a wide variety of materials that contribute to our packaging, and we work with Inspire Supply Chain, ARCOP, and NDCP to ensure our packaging materials are responsibly sourced. We will continue to innovate, evaluate, and test available packaging alternatives based on performance, environmental impact, quality, commercial viability, and cost.

Our Commitment to Reductions in Packaging

In 2019, Buffalo Wild Wings shifted to reusable dishware for dine-in in all franchised and company-owned sports bars. In doing so, we have eliminated 700 million individual pieces of paper and plastic from the waste stream annually.

In 2020, Dunkin’ U.S. restaurants replaced the polystyrene cup with a new double-walled paper cup made with paperboard certified to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Standard.

Additionally in 2020, Dunkin’ began testing an industrial compostable straw in select markets throughout the U.S. The straws are made with PHA, a material created by the fermentation of canola oil. While the straws have a similar look and feel as traditional plastic, the PHA material is both marine and soil biodegradable. The straws are certified for industrial compost-ability by the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), which is a globally recognized certification, education, and advocacy organization that supports a shift to the circular economy.

Another example is our shift from plastic to wooden stir-sticks across all Dunkin’ U.S. locations. Also, at Baskin-Robbins we have switched from plastic to paper-based packaging for our Fresh Pack quarts. These transitions eliminated nearly 300,000 pounds of plastic from the waste stream annually.

Across the Buffalo Wild Wings brand, by focusing on serving beer and other beverages from reusable steel kegs rather than single-use cans and bottles, we reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately six million kg of CO2e and kept over 15 million pounds of single-use containers out of landfills each year.

Dunkin’ NYC Franchisee, Pam Danbusky, has diverted approximately 47,600 pounds of organic waste from landfills since the beginning of 2020.

In 2022, Dunkin’ Korea began reducing food waste through food bank donations. This initiative is expected to decrease plant waste by 14.6 tons per year.

Recycling and Waste

Material and food waste reduction at our restaurants is important, and we continue to work with our suppliers to reduce waste throughout the supply chain. We encourage recycling in our franchise-owned restaurants and adhere to local composting and recycling regulations in our company-owned restaurants. More than 80% of our guests consume what they purchase outside of our restaurants; however, we are committed to providing our franchisees and restaurants with resources for environmental stewardship. At Dunkin’ we have made composting guidelines and a recycling toolkit available to our franchisees who wish to compost coffee grounds and other organic waste and recycle packaging from their restaurants.

Dunkin’ Franchisee, Kim Wolak, of Portland, ME, currently has 10 locations in Maine and has been composting for more than eight years. Her team’s composting efforts have diverted nearly 1,879 tons from landfills, amounting to approximately 3.7 million pounds. Dunkin’ also manages an End of Day Donation initiative as an optional program for franchisees that helps serve local non-profit community service and hunger relief organizations by donating surplus food from restaurants.

In 2021, we began piloting new projects to divert waste from landfill and reduce waste within our supply chain, beginning at the procurement stage. From a restaurant perspective, we are employing new technologies to streamline our food donation and composting programs. In partnership with Goodr®, we are testing a new, real-time surplus food recovery process at several restaurants across the country in hopes of scaling efforts to our entire portfolio.

Buffalo Wild Wings has been piloting a waste management program in approximately 30 sports bars, scaling to the full network in 2022. It is estimated that this new program will help reduce waste and overall usage by more than one million pounds of chicken and more than 350,000 pounds of fries annually.

Our Restaurant Experience

The Inspire Brands Innovation Center (IBIC) was designed to invest in and test technology that streamlines operations, provides a better guest experience, and improves the viability of restaurants. The IBIC is constantly testing and fine-tuning technologies that alleviate industry challenges in the workplace, like staffing, food quality, safety and more. In 2021, Inspire Brands and Miso Robotics announced Flippy Wings, a robotic chicken wing frying solutions designed to help kitchen staff prepare and cook chicken items more safely and efficiently; reducing the number of human touch points and ensuring the chicken is cooked to perfection. Flippy Wings also allows restaurants to redeploy team members to more guest-facing function, ultimately improving the guest experience by making kitchen operations more efficient.

In 2021, Inspire opened the first ghost kitchen operated by a multi-brand restaurant company. Located in Atlanta, Alliance Kitchen offers favorite menu items from Arby’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Jimmy John’s, and SONIC. Alliance Kitchen’s innovative design reduces labor needs by 54%, square footage needs by 19%, equipment costs by 45%, and energy consumption by more than 50%, compared to five stand-alone restaurants. Alliance Kitchen allows guests to order their meal via a brand’s online ordering platform or a preferred third-party delivery app, and meals may be delivered by third-party deliverers or picked-up by guests at Alliance Kitchen.

Arby’s unveiled its Inspire Dual design in 2019, modernizing the standard building aesthetic, while also creating key operational efficiencies and allowing increased flexibility. In addition to an eye-catching exterior, the prototype features a dual line, more efficient kitchen layout with space for future menu and technology expansion. The new building design is comprised of durable materials and offers scalable footprints that allow additional space for dine-in, drive-thru, or digital-order only. The Inspire Dual prototype is designed as the prototype to support future evolutions in brand strategy and guest preferences.

In 2019, we began our national rollout of the new Moments concept design. The brand’s U.S. restaurant-of-the-future is designed with a modernized atmosphere making it easy to connect over ice cream with family and friends. Key features of the Moments next generation shop design include contemporary décor, ice cream dipping cabinets with a new “novelties” collection, a modernized menu, unique and interactive artwork to celebrate the key attributes of each local community, flexible and modern seating, a garage door and windows that open to the outside, and upgraded digital menu boards.

Buffalo Wild Wings' new sports bar design features a bar that anchors the dining experience, all new fixtures and flooring, free flowing and flexible seating areas, and stadium-like A/V technologies with wall-to-wall LED modular screens, to foster the greatest experiences of all time among friends. The bar, a dominant feature of the restaurant, features over 30 ice-cold beers on draft. A full selection of spirits is centrally located behind the bar. The bar’s seating area includes modular LED televisions, providing guests a great view of the game no matter where they are seated. In the adjoining dining area, the restaurant mixes rectangular and round tabletops, as well as community tables and booths for parties of all sizes, ensuring every group of friends can experience the greatest of all times from their tables. The dining area includes a second LED modular jumbotron screen.

Launched in May 2020, the new Buffalo Wild Wings’ GO® format is designed specifically for takeout and delivery orders. At less than 1,800 sq. ft., the GO format features a walk-up counter, digital menu boards, condensed seating, and TVs for guests to enjoy while waiting for their orders. Unique to the Buffalo Wild Wings GO® experience, guests who order ahead can pick up their meal from heated takeout lockers, providing a contactless experience.

In 2021, we proudly celebrated the opening of our 1,000th Next Gen restaurant in Woodstock, GA. Modern design elements include the first drive-thru exclusively for mobile ordering, a dedicated mobile order pick-up area, and fully integrated digital kiosks. It also features a tap system serving cold beverages such as iced coffee, iced tea, Cold Brew, and Nitro-Infused Cold Brew—a Next Gen exclusive. Next Generation restaurants are designed to meet DD Green Achievement™ specifications. Restaurants that achieve DD Green Achievement status, including the one in Woodstock, are built with sustainable and efficient elements and designed to be at least 25% more energy efficient than our previous Fresh Brew design.

As Jimmy John’s brings our new brand identity—launched in early 2021—to life in-restaurant, we are driving restaurant efficiencies from top to bottom. These include lowered acoustic ceilings that enable significant heating and cooling efficiencies, while polished concrete flooring conserves materials and provides energy efficiency benefits. A more streamlined kitchen design, as well as new equipment options, add additional energy efficiencies throughout the restaurant.

On the heels of launching a new brand identity and advertising campaign in 2020, SONIC opened the first physical drive-in of our new restaurant design Delight. The updated look provides a fun and inviting space for guests to enjoy an oasis, a little escape from their daily routine. The design features our iconic drive-in stalls, a drive-thru, and a covered outdoor patio where guests can dine under string lights and enjoy lawn games. Inside the drive-in, a new kitchen layout enables teams to operate more efficiently with a smaller footprint. The design was created to translate seamlessly from previous formats and footprints as older Sonic locations are refreshed.

Resource Stewardship

To better understand our footprint as a company, we have worked with an external consultancy to measure our energy and GHG emissions for our U.S. support centers, corporate fleet, and company-owned restaurants. Overall, our emissions decreased by 10% between 2019 and 2021. The tables below detail Inspire’s scope 1 and 2 footprint and energy consumption for 2021 for our support centers and company-owned restaurants.

Breakdown by Business Activity

3,678

Corporate Fleet

4,942

Support Centers

296,156

Corporate Restaurants

304,776

Total

2021 GHG Emissions Metric Tons CO2E

Breakdown by Emissions Scope

83,355

Scope 1 (gasoline, diesel fuel, and natural gas)

221,421

Scope 2 (electricity)

304,776

Total

2021 GHG Emissions Metric Tons CO2E

Through targeted improvements and long-term investments, we have achieved a 22% reduction in total energy since 2011, resulting in more than $60 million in energy-related cost savings across Arby’s company-owned restaurants.

Globally, Baskin-Robbins is striving to provide franchisees and licensees with more efficient equipment that will reduce total water usage. In 2018, we tested a more efficient, on-demand ice cream scooper washer in the U.S., Dubai, and Australia. Initial findings demonstrated a significant reduction in the gallons of water used in all test locations. With water being one of the world’s most precious commodities, Baskin-Robbins continues to test additional water saving equipment for its restaurants. In the U.S., we are continuing to test a variety of higher efficiency alternatives to ensure we select the best ice cream scooper washer for our shops.

Buffalo Wild Wings implemented an LED retrofit on kitchen lighting in all company-owned sports bars, saving more than 5.2 million kilowatt hours of energy and $520,000 each year. We also implemented an energy management system initiative that will result in a 5% average reduction in gas and electric use year-over-year.

Dunkin’ launched the DD Green Achievement^TM program in 2014 and since then has opened more than 700 restaurants reaching DD Green Achievement status with a goal to reach 1,000 by 2025. DD Green Achievement restaurants are built with sustainable and efficient elements including LED lighting, high-efficiency mechanical equipment, low-flow faucets, and more sustainable features. DD Green Achievement restaurants, which were designed to save between 15 to 20% of energy use as compared to traditional Dunkin’ restaurants, have proven to save approximately 33% of energy use, on average, when compared to conventional Dunkin’ locations, outperforming design anticipations.

Jimmy John’s continues to identify sustainability opportunities across our equipment lineup, including on-demand water heaters and air-cooled ice machines to reduce water waste. Our efficient new kitchen design and reduced standard building size results in an overall energy reduction of 10%. New restaurants have also moved to all LED lighting inside and outside the restaurant, reducing energy consumption from lighting by 25%.

By shrinking the standard building size in the new Delight prototype, Sonic has significantly reduced building materials and decreased energy usage by 20%. We also implemented an LED outdoor lighting initiative at more than 95% of our company-owned restaurants, resulting in electricity costs savings of more than 50%.

Sustainability in Action

At Baskin-Robbins, Dunkin’, and Jimmy John’s locations across the U.S., we are working with Budderfly® to increase energy efficiency by upgrading equipment, lighting, refrigeration, and more. Budderfly® allows us to monitor equipment in real-time to identify opportunities to reduce our emissions and energy consumption. During the first half of this year alone, we reduced CO2 emissions by 57 metric tons. We have plans to scale our work with Budderfly® across all brands.

Dunkin’ opened its first-ever drive-thru lane dedicated to bikes in Quezon City in January 2021. Whether the Dunkin’ craving hits while riding a traditional bike, moped, or motorcycle, it is now even easier for the large population of bikers in the Philippines to get their Dunkin’ order on two wheels instead of on four.

In 2021, SONIC Carhop Sara Montgomery went above and beyond to
bring smiles to guests’ faces by attaching tiny handmade fabric flowers
to their iconic SONIC mints.