If healthy, quick food seems like an oxymoron, you haven’t been to Burgerville, a chain of 39 Pacific Northwest quick-service restaurants. Burgers here are made from pastured vegetarian-fed and antibiotic-free beef. The eggs on our breakfast biscuits are from cage-free hens that have never been treated with antibiotics. Salads offer mixed greens topped with smoked salmon and Oregon hazelnuts. Even desserts and sides rely on seasonal, local ingredients—blackberry milkshakes are only available in season, as are the hand-prepared buttermilk-battered onion rings made from Walla Walla sweet onions grown in Washington and Oregon.

Burgerville purchases wind power credits equal to 100 percent of our electricity use, recycles used canola oil into biodiesel, and offers its hourly employees an affordable $15-a-month health-care plan. In recent years, we transformed our business plan, focusing on aligning all parts of our company with our values, finding new ways to serve our employees and guests and sharing our story along the way. The results were double-digit same store sales increases in 2006 and 2007. We are clear that conducting business sustainably is good business.

In a time when most companies are cutting back on healthcare for employees, Burgerville is taking a bold step in the other direction. Effective January 2006, the company introduced new healthcare packages for hourly employees and their families that decreased the employees’ premium costs. These packages are unique in that Burgerville contributes more than 90 percent of the cost of both its employees’ and their dependents’ healthcare plan, following through on its commitment to ensure that the company’s employees are healthy and well.

Hourly employees with six months of service and working 20 hours a week are eligible for coverage at a cost of only $15 a month. The Holland pays 95% of the premium for individual employees as well as 90% of the cost for their dependents. “We are not aware of another restaurant company doing this,” stated Jack Graves, chief cultural officer for Burgerville. In fact, according to PayScale, Inc., a leading provider of online compensation information with access to accurate data for both employees and employers, 60 percent of those working in the quick service restaurant (QSR) field do not have any form of medical insurance.

From the beginning, it has been Burgerville’s intention to demonstrate the regional value of sustainable business practices so that other local partners, colleagues, peers, employees and guests could see the return in making a similar commitment.  Wind technology has come a long way since the early 1970s, and Burgerville has been at the forefront of adopting this in each of their restaurants and corporate headquarters. Burgerville’s executive leadership team personally enrolled in a renewable energy program with their local utility provider and later had a company meeting during which representatives from three different utility companies further educated the management team and encouraged implementation within their restaurant teams, families and friends.

Burgerville purchases 100 percent renewable wind power credits equal to the total energy use in all 39 Burgerville locations and its corporate headquarters. By using wind power for all of its restaurants and its corporate headquarters, the company avoids adding 17.4 million pounds of CO2 to the region annually. Eliminating this volume of harmful greenhouse gases is the equivalent of taking approximately 1,700 cars off the road or reducing the number of miles driven in the region by 19 million.

Burgerville purchases its renewable “clean” wind power from large-scale wind farms located throughout the region, and the company only purchases wind power from energy providers that are environmentally sensitive to their locales. The slow-motion, large windmills create a significant amount of energy while also being animal friendly. Many businesses and individuals throughout the community have joined Burgerville in its pledge to alternative sustainable practices by adopting wind power. Wind power represents the opportunity to help preserve natural resources and sustain clean rivers, vital forests, abundant wildlife and clean air, all in the interest of healthy, thriving communities.