McD's burger gets a green touch

CALIFORNIA: A new McDonald’s scheduled to open this July, will among other things and menu, have an interactive LCD touchscreen and if you guessed right, a LEED seal.

The new building is registered with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) as part of the LEED for Retail Pilot program.

The restaurant will show customers and staff its green initiatives by displaying an educational touchscreen, informing them about the economic and environmental benefits of the building. The interactive LCD touchscreen will allow users to browse through a Web-site-like program to learn more about the building’s energy efficiencies and what McDonald’s is doing to improve the environment.

Details from this building project and over 80 other pilot project teams will be used to create two new LEED for Retail rating systems to be launched later this year. The building was designed by the National Restaurant Designers Division of LMHT Associates.

The touchscreen solution that will be used is an Energy Efficiency Education Dashboard (EEED), designed by Quality Automation Graphics, that will essentially be a graphical user interface (GUI) displaying live data about a building’s energy efficiencies and green initiatives streamed from the building’s automation system.

“QA Graphics is excited to help McDonald’s inform the public on all the green features they have integrated into this new building,” said Dan McCarty, president and founder of Quality Automation Graphics.

The touchscreen will show images of the McDonald’s outside surrounding areas, plus a 360 degree digital tour of the inside of the building, where users can select different features to learn more about the innovative designs used, like the fuel efficient parking spaces with electrical plug-in outlets, water efficient equipment, recycling areas and more. It will also provide users with local transportation information, including pedestrian paths and bicycle paths, and a “green” quiz that users can take to test their knowledge of the restaurant.  All of the information will be accessible in English and Spanish, as a press release shared.