Scaling sustainable restaurants: KFC’s business-first approach

KFC is one of the world’s most iconic quick-service restaurant (QSR) brands, serving millions of customers daily in over 150 countries. As the largest brand of its parent company Yum! Brands, KFC represents nearly half of Yum!’s 60,000 plus restaurants and a significant amount of its carbon emissions. Recognizing the climate impact of its vast restaurant footprint, KFC partnered with Quantis to make sustainable operations practical and franchise-ready.

Quantis helped build a compelling business case and implementation framework to embed sustainability into new builds and remodels — aligning climate action with franchisee economics and brand growth.

Challenge

Decarbonizing store operations across a decentralized global franchise system posed a real challenge due to franchisees managing their own investments, often under tight margins, short timelines and competing demands.

To turn climate commitments into real-world progress, KFC needed to:

• Build a financially credible case for sustainable practices
• Adapt solutions to diverse regional contexts
• Equip teams and franchisees with tools, incentives and clear governance
• Bridge the gap between long-term ambition and short-term decisions

The question wasn’t “why sustainability?” — but “how do we make it a scalable, value-driving strategy?”

Solutions

Quantis delivered a comprehensive approach that combines strategy, financial modeling and change management. The work focused on three key pillars:

1. Diagnostics & strategy alignment
Current initiatives were mapped, internal stakeholders interviewed and governance gaps identified — creating a baseline for focused action.

2. Financial modeling & ROI analysis
Quantis quantified the business case for sustainable transformation, demonstrating that 80% of priority actions — like efficient lighting and HVAC — yield measurable results with payback of less than two years in most markets.

3. Franchisee engagement toolkit & implementation guide
They developed clear messaging, tailored ROI materials and a flexible playbook to drive franchisee buy-in. A new governance framework now supports consistent rollout across regions.

Together, these tools turned KFC’s sustainability vision into a financially-grounded, scalable strategy.

Results

Business case clarity
KFC now has a global, franchise-ready model that shows how embedding sustainability into its business strategy can deliver strong return-on-investment.

Operational impact
Achieving scale has been significant. KFC’s Building Green Must-Haves — global standards designed to unlock energy efficiency and reduce emissions from HVAC systems, kitchen equipment, lighting and more, while ultimately saving franchisees money — are now being embedded into new builds and remodels across regions.

Internal alignment + franchisee buy-in
With a common language, governance structure and a clear business case in place, KFC is accelerating sustainable transformation across markets — future-proofing operations from the ground up.

With Quantis, KFC proved that sustainable restaurants are a smart, scalable investment and gave Franchisees a playbook on how to cut costs within the payback periods they are used to. It’s future-proofing the brand, delivering value for franchisees and setting a new standard for sustainable growth in QSR.

Stephanie Zhu, Yum! Director of Climate