Wendy’s followed a systematic, multi-step approach in encouraging franchisees to set energy conservation goals and to provide guidance on data collection and benchmarking.
Leading By Example
The Wendy’s Company has shown consistent leadership in energy efficiency by developing an energy team, integrating energy management into business practices, investing in energy efficiency projects, and achieving energy savings. Wendy’s was one of the first quick-service restaurant companies to join the Better Buildings Challenge, and in doing so, set an example in energy-efficiency stewardship for franchisees and the food services industry as a whole.
Determining and Communicating Value
In order to share its successes in energy management with franchisees, Wendy’s worked with members of its leadership team, and with major franchise-owners to understand the specific energy management needs of Wendy’s franchise operators. Early in this process, it became evident that two key benefits were most important to franchisee companies – benchmarking their facilities’ energy performances against peers and quantifying the impact of investments in energy efficiency.
Afterwards, internal teams, regional leads and corporate leadership worked together to develop and communicate a consistent message on the benefits of systematic energy management to the Wendy’s franchisees in the US and Canada. The messaging also addressed the benefits to the companies’ business and brand, should they choose to join the Better Buildings Challenge.
Identifying & Eliminating Hurdles
In the process of developing this message, Wendy’s recognized that franchise operators had several major concerns when considering energy benchmarking and management. Primarily, these concerns time-commitment, ability to gather data, or reach a committed goal. To alleviate these concerns, Wendy’s took an innovative approach to reduce effort and eliminate the barriers faced by franchise operators – the company tapped into its highly experienced energy team and external vendors to provide resources and support to franchisees in the following areas:
- Wendy’s energy team provided coaching and resources to franchisees in setting up Portfolio Manager accounts to track restaurant energy data.
- Historic energy data was provided to franchisees when they purchased restaurants that were previously corporate-owned restaurants.
- Wendy’s worked with the franchise operators and their local utility company to collect historic energy data for their restaurants.
- A scorecard is provided to each franchisee, with a percentile ranking of their company facilities’ energy use per transaction.
- Wendy’s is working towards connecting franchise operators with third-party energy data management companies that can help them import and input the historical data and provide ongoing data management, benchmarking, and analysis.
Celebrate Successes
To further strengthen the corporate message on the importance of energy management, and to motivate more franchisee companies to focus on energy efficiency, Wendy’s is committed to celebrating individual franchisee members’ successes. Sharing successful practices, results, and milestone moments has been instrumental in generating interest among franchisees. To this end, in August 2016, Wendy’s worked with the Better Building Challenge to host a media event recognizing the efforts of the Wendco Group – the first Wendy’s franchisee to join the Better Buildings Challenge.
Tools & Resources
- Wendy’s Energy Management Program Commitments and Roles document
- Wendy’s Better Buildings Challenge Scorecard
- Wendy’s Energy Times - Annual Publication
In addition to incorporating conversations about energy efficiency into franchisee check-in calls, and having presentations at regional franchisee meetings, Wendy’s also conducts one-on-one conversations with major franchisees to initiate discussions about energy management.
Outreach efforts typically focus on sharing energy management practices that have been proven at other Wendy’s restaurants and how franchise operators may be able reduce costs and help their bottom line by focusing on energy management. Franchise operators' accomplishments in energy management are also shared through Wendy’s intranet, and this has proven to be a successful method of increasing franchisee interest in energy efficiency and the Better Buildings Challenge.
Wendy’s also shares energy stories, preliminary results, and strategies with franchisees, customers and other stakeholders via posts on the Wendy’s corporate blog The Square Deal, and through an annual publication called “Energy Times.”
The success of this model is evident in the number of franchisees committing to energy-reduction targets and the savings (energy and cost) that Wendy’s restaurants are seeing across the organization.
Franchisees have used these energy management tools and committed to internal energy management goals. A list of Wendy’s franchise operators that are participating in the Better Buildings Challenge can be found on the Wendy’s company page.
