Dear Yum! Brands: Your “Green” Taco Bell/KFC is a Joke

If this had been announced before I wrote the Top 10 Dumbest Green Buildings on Earth, it would have easily taken the number one slot.

Yum! Brands has asked the United States Green Building Council to LEED-certify its Northampton, MA Taco Bell/Kentucky Fried Chicken location because the building includes rainwater collection, solar panels, LED lighting, and recycled building materials.

They neglect to mention in their press release that all food will still be packaged (regardless of whether patrons dine in or take out) and that they’ll still be serving lots and lots of factory-farmed meat — the number one known cause of global warming.

• » See also: Are There Any Risks In Building Green?
• » Get Green Building Elements by RSS or sign up by email.

Before anyone comments to criticize me for not bowing down and thanking Yum! for “making an effort,” just think twice. Do we really need “green” fast food restaurants, or would we be better off without fast food at all? Can fast food ever be truly be “green,” or is that an inherent contradiction of terms?

Yum! Brands, which also owns Pizza Hut and Long John Silver’s, has over 36,000 restaurants in 110 countries. This one “green” restaurant is part of their attempt at corporate responsibility called “Serving the World” that also includes genuinely positive campaigns to donate to causes working to end world hunger and “minimizing” their environmental impact.

But they’re operating on what I believe are faulty assumptions that fast food can be made “green” in its current conception. Or they’re greenwashing, knowing that their company really isn’t making any significant effort to protect the environment.

An 89-cent burrito will never be socially responsible: Not for the person eating it, not for the people making it, and not for the producers of the ingredients. Cutting costs so sharply means externalities are inevitable. While Yum! may green its buildings (or, one building), I’m not holding my breath for them to ever green their practices.

In short, thank you for composting your chicken buckets, but you deserve any kind of credit for doing so. The product inside is garbage and always will be. You can pay your farmers a penny more per tomato, but that doesn’t make them fair trade.

To learn more about Yum! Brands long record of “corporate responsibility,” check out their KnowMore.org page and PETA’s KFC Cruelty page.

Photo Credit: yajico on Flickr under Creative Commons license.

Tweet This Post