1 00:00:00,146 --> 00:00:03,186 Hello TEDxPresidio, my name is Pär Larshans. 2 00:00:03,186 --> 00:00:09,251 I'm Chief Sustainability Officer from Max Hamburger Restaurants, a fast food chain from Sweden. 3 00:00:09,251 --> 00:00:14,802 In 2002, the two sons of the founders, Richard and Christopher, 4 00:00:14,802 --> 00:00:16,885 became in charge of the company. 5 00:00:16,885 --> 00:00:21,004 The first thing they did was to travel in the US together with their father 6 00:00:21,004 --> 00:00:23,816 and I think they had more than 800 burgers 7 00:00:23,816 --> 00:00:25,874 during a period of four weeks. 8 00:00:25,874 --> 00:00:31,586 Coming home from the US they, of course, saw not just the good taste 9 00:00:31,586 --> 00:00:36,303 but also the long-term consequences of consuming fast food. 10 00:00:36,303 --> 00:00:40,117 Therefore, in 2003 we launched our Delifresh menu, 11 00:00:40,117 --> 00:00:42,468 that means that we are trying to serve burgers 12 00:00:42,468 --> 00:00:48,280 based on low fat, low sugar, less salt and, of course, fibre-rich breads. 13 00:00:53,650 --> 00:00:56,524 There are many things we do in our road to sustainability. 14 00:00:56,524 --> 00:01:01,665 Another example is, of course, the way that we are hiring people with disabilities. 15 00:01:01,665 --> 00:01:04,266 What we are doing is that we are trying to focus 16 00:01:04,266 --> 00:01:06,115 not on the people with disabilities, 17 00:01:06,115 --> 00:01:08,956 on the other hand, we focus on our managers 18 00:01:08,956 --> 00:01:13,267 and try to take away the prejudices by teaching them 19 00:01:13,267 --> 00:01:17,468 about the people with disabilities and how to train them. 20 00:01:17,468 --> 00:01:20,352 The result of the cause today is that our programme 21 00:01:20,352 --> 00:01:22,671 has been highlighted by the European Union 22 00:01:22,671 --> 00:01:25,533 and, of course, here are also some pictures 23 00:01:25,533 --> 00:01:30,489 where the present Minister of Employment meets some of the employees. 24 00:01:30,489 --> 00:01:33,985 In late 2006, Mr Richard Bergfors was concerned, 25 00:01:33,985 --> 00:01:39,488 he had seen Al Gore's movie "An Unconvenient truth" more than sixteen times. 26 00:01:39,488 --> 00:01:44,579 So, therefore, he came to the top management team with a question: 27 00:01:44,579 --> 00:01:50,352 how is the situation in our company? What is our impact to the climate? 28 00:01:50,352 --> 00:01:53,041 The result of this was depressing in some ways, 29 00:01:53,041 --> 00:01:56,622 meaning that the beef, our prime product, 30 00:01:56,622 --> 00:02:00,606 is more than 70% of our total emissions. 31 00:02:00,606 --> 00:02:04,929 And with that result on hand, we decided to call to action. 32 00:02:05,067 --> 00:02:08,766 (Slide: Putting the carbon on the menu) 33 00:02:08,766 --> 00:02:12,792 (Slide: We offset everything we emit by planting trees in Africa.) 34 00:02:13,116 --> 00:02:17,711 Other reaction is, of course, our new environmental-friendly restaurants, 35 00:02:17,711 --> 00:02:21,822 that are really focusing on reduced consumption of energy 36 00:02:21,822 --> 00:02:27,786 but also the way how the whole restaurant is environmental deductible. 37 00:02:27,786 --> 00:02:29,906 Running a fast food company just in Sweden, 38 00:02:29,906 --> 00:02:33,899 even if we have the ambition of opening up new restaurants outside Sweden, 39 00:02:33,899 --> 00:02:39,234 I'm still amazed over the big recognition that our programme has had. 40 00:02:39,234 --> 00:02:41,132 Sir Paul McCartney: In Sweden now 41 00:02:41,132 --> 00:02:43,031 they've started to label food 42 00:02:43,031 --> 00:02:47,306 to show the costumers the environmental damage rating, 43 00:02:47,306 --> 00:02:49,857 so it's giving the people a choice. 44 00:02:49,857 --> 00:02:55,007 You're told that, you know, this burger is going to 45 00:02:55,007 --> 00:02:59,257 damage the atmosphere to the equivalent of this and, so, 46 00:02:59,257 --> 00:03:02,921 at least the customers then can look at the goods and say 47 00:03:02,921 --> 00:03:05,268 well, maybe I don't want to buy them. 48 00:03:05,268 --> 00:03:09,321 So it gives them the chance to buy sensibly and responsibly. 49 00:03:09,321 --> 00:03:13,438 Pär Larshans: And I can assure you, Max as a company will continue 50 00:03:13,438 --> 00:03:16,126 to make efforts to reduce our emissions 51 00:03:16,126 --> 00:03:19,469 and inspire others to do the same thing.