Dunkin Donuts recently announced the launch of “DD Green,” a green building initiative that hopes to build over 100 new certified restaurants by the end of 2016.  Could this eventually lead to healthy donuts?  We sure hope not!
“We are delighted to be able to launch the DD Green initiative, a green-building certification program that is customized for our various store formats and designed to enable us to meet our long-term environmental targets,” said Paul Twohig, President, Dunkin’ Donuts U.S. and Canada, and Dunkin’ Donuts & Baskin-Robbins Europe and Latin America. Â “We are committed to building greener restaurants, and this new program is designed to reduce our overall environmental footprint and improve operating costs for our franchisees.”
The DD Green program requires franchisees, construction managers and architects to follow a five-stage program during the planning, design and construction phases of store development.  The five stages are Site Development, Store Efficiency, Healthy Indoors, Sustainable Operations and Innovation and Community.
Each stage’s strategies provides a brief synopsis of the goal of the measure, specific educational information, and guidance and metrics to help the design and construction team.
DD Green strategies include the mitigation of construction pollution and waste recycling, installation of energy-efficient LED light fixtures, mechanical units and water-saving plumbing fixtures, implementation of healthy environments with indoor air quality management and use of zero-VOC paints, and a required sustainable building operations training for employees.
There are two levels of certification within the program: DD Green, where stores meet minimum sustainable requirements; and DD Green Elite, where stores reach beyond minimum requirements and achieve additional suggested sustainable goals.  Stores that have met the DD Green or DD Green Elite criteria will display a plaque in-store that notes the restaurant’s achievement in energy reduction and sustainable design.
Customers can take a virtual tour of a DD Green certified store, courtesy of Mother Nature Network.
UL Environment, a third-party reviewer of sustainability programs, has reviewed and certified the DD Green program.  “We have reviewed the new DD Green certification program and confirmed that the strategies required for achievement will, if implemented as described, enable participating Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants to achieve reductions in energy and water usage, and reduce waste and material sent to landfills in comparison to Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants that do not implement the DD Green strategies required for certification,” says Catherine Sheehy, Program Manager for UL Environment.
Source | Images: Dunkin Donuts, amsfrank via Photopin through a Creative Commons License.
