Yum Brands' First Sustainability Report

The fast food industry has come under greater scrutiny since the Dogwood Alliance launched its No Free Refills campaign, (nicely balanced with an alarming report and a fun take on a classic video game called PACkaging MAN) to address wasteful paper packaging made from US southern forests. Under the greater scrutiny, Yum Brands has released its first sustainability report. Its a notable first step, but of course Yum has a long way to go, and hasn't looked at its responsibility for the clearcutting in the southern US to produce the ludicrous amount of paper it consumes. But some of their paper reduction first steps are another example of rethinking how goods are delivered in order to cut costs, and reduce your paper/carbon footprint.

From EnvironmentalLeader: "The company reported that its U.S. brands use molded fiber drink cup carriers that are made from 100 percent recycled content and use trayliners with 40 percent recycled content. In 2008 Taco Bell eliminated trayliners, and reduced the materials used in its packaging by redesigning two plastic cups and seven different paper wraps, in total cutting paper usage by 3.2 million pounds and plastic by 4.6 million pounds."

UPDATE: Dogwood Alliance responds to release of Sustainability Report

Also today, Nokia is reporting how reducing packaging cut paper usage and saved money for them.

"Since reducing the size of product packaging, Sormunen says it has cut paper usage by 100 tons, taken 12,000 trucks off the road and saved €470 million (approximately $610 million)."