Carbon Footprint on the menu board at Swedish QSR chain

In the U.S., quick-serve operators are scrambling to figure out how they'll abide by the menu-labeling mandate requiring calorie counts be posted on menuboards. But one Swedish chain hasn't just figured out how to post non-price numeric information on the menuboard, it's doing so with a totally different count: carbon emissions.

Richard Bergfors, CEO of Max Burgers, the second-largest restaurant chain in Sweden behind McDonald's, says adding the carbon footprint to the chain's menuboard was a way for the company to be honest about its affect on the environment.

"We put it up, as clearly as you can see … so the customers now can see exactly how much the carbon footprint is on each item,"Bergfors says. "That was the idea, to make a debate amongst our customers to try to influence them to make different choices."