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January 5th, 2010
North Carolina’s first green McDonald’s uses LED Lights (and cotton, bamboo, recycled glass and more)
Take a quick look at one McDonald’s in Cary, NC, and you might not guess that it’s different than every other McDonald’s in North Carolina. But step inside and you’ll see why this McDonald’s in the Saltbox Village shopping center is making history.
The restaurant is the first green McDonald’s in the state, on track to receive its LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council later this month. (Take a look at the 25+ year-old McDonald’s v. the new one. Approximately 99 percent of the debris generated by the demolition process was diverted from landfills by either being reused or recycled).
I recently visited the restaurant to chat with franchise owner Ric Richards about why he chose LED lights to light up 97 percent of the store. Turns out the LED lights in his store consume 78 percent less electricity compared to a standard lighting package at other McDonald’s restaurants.
The restaurant was designed to take advantage of natural light and uses a fully automated, intelligent lighting-control system that combines light from Cree LED lighting and daylighting from Solatube skylights. There’s even a photo sensor to maintain the proper light levels on work surfaces. So, if it’s rainy and overcast outside, the LED light levels are increased to compensate. And since the system is automated, it’s not up to an employee to notice the changing light levels and fool around with the switches. How cool is that?!
Of course, there are many other neat steps taken to use green technologies, and there’s even a touchscreen video kiosk at the front of the store that shows off some of technologies. Here’s a video featuring some of the neat building materials used in construction and my interview with Ric about the energy-efficient LED lights:
Stay tuned, we’ll be updating you soon on the official LEED certification of Ric’s franchise.
6 Responses to “North Carolina’s first green McDonald’s uses LED Lights (and cotton, bamboo, recycled glass and more)”
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With the development of high efficiency and high power LEDs it has become possible to incorporate LEDs in lighting and illumination. Replacement light bulbs have been made as well as dedicated fixtures and LED lamps. LEDs are used as street lights and in other architectural lighting where color changing is used. The mechanical robustness and long lifetime is used in automotive lighting on cars, motorcycles and on bicycle lights.
My boss is from NC and he is always telling about this McDonald’s, that made me so curious. From the pics is looking real nice, I saw that Mc is doing this kind of changes to all their restaurants.
All business should invest in these lights because they save a lot of energy.
[...] many McDonald’s restaurants have obtained Gold LEED certifications for its changes. For example, North Carolina’s first green McDonald’s restaurant in Cary tore down its old restaurant and built a new sustainable building according to LEED [...]
Hey, have you got an RSS Feed I might subscribe to?
I’m thinking that McDonald is soon to implement all-LED lighting in its branches worldwide. Since it produced 78% less electricity, Mac can save a lot of money. Not to mention LEDs are environmentally friendly. I hope other establishments will follow this example.