Wendy’s 2024 Progress Update on Corporate Responsibility

Our Commitment in Action

At Wendy’s^®, we are focused on continuing to earn customer love by delivering on our brand promise – Fresh Famous Food…Made Right…For You – in every restaurant, for every customer, with every visit. Our 'Good Done Right' corporate responsibility platform underpins this important promise, as we continue our work to achieve ambitious goals across three strategic pillars: Food, People, and Footprint. As we reach the midpoint of our 2024 reporting cycle, we’ve made important progress since publishing our 2023 Corporate Responsibility report in May.

This update offers a snapshot of our journey towards creating a more sustainable and responsible future for our Company, the communities in which we serve and our planet. We invite you to explore our progress at Wendy’s, showing that when it comes to doing good, Wendy’s is committed to doing it right.

Food: Responsible Sourcing and Maintaining Food Safety, Quality 

We are continuing to work toward our goal of responsibly sourcing our top 10 priority food categories by 2030 in the U.S. and Canada. This year, we continued engaging with the suppliers in scope for the program, including beginning to work with them to submit category-specific data and documentation to help us track progress against our goal. An important aspect of this work is participation in our disclosure and audit program, which includes enrollment on the EcoVadis platform and completion of a self-assessment. To date, approximately 64% of in-scope suppliers have completed the required assessment, a 20% increase from 2023, toward our goal of 100%.   

Our ability to offer high-quality food is directly impacted by the quality, performance and innovation of our suppliers as well as our teams.  Wendy’s and our franchisees are members of Quality Supply Chain Co-op, Inc.  (QSCC^SM), the independent purchasing cooperative for the Company and Wendy’s system. This year, QSCC announced a partnership with Palantir Technologies Inc., a leading provider of AI systems, to accelerate supply chain digital transformation, AI adoption and operational decision-making across QSCC. This partnership will bring QSCC opportunities for AI-driven, automated workflows to improve operational and supply chain efficiency and waste prevention, as well as a step toward greater connectivity between Wendy’s suppliers, distributors and restaurants.

People: Empowering Team Members and Strengthening Communities

Recently, we celebrated the top 3% of General Managers across our global System while successfully raising $2 million for the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption^® (DTFA) during our Global Franchise Convention. Additionally, we raised nearly $200,000 through our annual Frosty^® 5K Run for Adoption. The record-setting fundraising was made possible with the generous support of  franchisees, suppliers, and Company employees and QSCC associates.

As part of our ongoing support for the DTFA, Wendy's embraced the Halloween season in restaurants nationwide by using the holiday as an opportunity to have fun while giving something back. We launched new, limited-edition offerings, including the Boo! Bag meal for adults and Frosty Frights kids’ meals to support the System’s annual Frosty Boo! Books^® campaign, with proceeds from each coupon book sold directly funding the DTFA’s work. With these combined efforts, we are on track to surpass last year’s Boo! Books fundraising totals, helping the DTFA find safe, loving homes for children waiting in foster care.

In tandem with these charitable efforts, Wendy's is continuing to uplift our employees while cultivating an inclusive and equitable workplace culture. We encourage our team members to bring their authentic selves to work, supported by seven Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) that provide professional development and mentoring, among other benefits. Membership in these ERGs has increased ~30% since 2023, including members in our international markets.

Footprint: Advancing Environmental Sustainability Efforts

Through our efforts to evolve alongside the industry, we recently updated our science-based targets focused on supply chain (scope 3) emissions reductions to incorporate our new Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) target, which is now industry standard for companies in land-intensive sectors. Recognizing that commodity production plays a significant role in deforestation, Wendy’s has now committed to reduce absolute forest land and agriculture emissions by 33.3% by 2030 from a 2019 base year, across both FLAG emissions and removals. We also committed to no deforestation across our primary commodities most at risk of deforestation, which we identified as beef, fiber associated with paper packaging, palm oil and soy, with a target date of December 31, 2025.

We have also updated our emissions reduction targets for the goods and services we purchase, and from our franchisees to meet requirements under the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Wendy’s updated goals target a 55% reduction per metric ton of goods purchased, and a 55% reduction per franchise restaurant by 2030 from a 2019 base year. Our previous scope 3 goals targeted a 47% reduction across both categories within the same timeframe. SBTi has validated our new and updated goals.

In 2024, we also continued to progress toward our sustainable packaging goal criteria, which will also contribute to our FLAG goal. One of the indicators we are working toward is sourcing our packaging materials from areas that do not contribute to deforestation. Earlier this year, we shared that our fry cartons in the U.S. and in Canada have achieved SFI's "certified sourcing" standard, meaning that the fiber in the packaging came from responsibly managed forest lands. We have now begun transitioning our chili cups and bakery bags in the U.S. and Canada to meet SFI’s “certified sourcing” standard and feature the SFI label.

In Canada, in 2022, we transitioned from plastic to paper straws. In October, our Canadian restaurants completed a transition to a lid that doesn’t require a straw, removing the straw altogether, although paper straws are still available upon request. Customers can recycle the strawless lid in select municipalities. 

Continuous Growth, Powered by Partnership

One of our key strengths lies in our ability to work with stakeholders both within and beyond our organization. This includes our franchisees, direct suppliers, and the thousands who supply them, as well as our employees, restaurant teams, shareholders, and the industry experts who guide our initiatives and drive progress beyond conventional boundaries.

Each year, Wendy’s Good Done Right Award recognizes a supplier who has stood out in its commitment to enhancing our corporate responsibility pillars of Food, People and Footprint. In 2024, we are proud to recognize Crow Works, our supplier partner for all dining room furniture in our restaurants in the U.S. and Canada. Crow Works is diligent about energy usage in their manufacturing facilities and goes to great lengths to responsibly source raw materials locally. They maintain a Forestry Stewardship Council Certification, and their “Tree for Every Tabletop” program supports the planting of one tree for every table sold to their customers. 

With our Good Done Right approach as our foundation and our partners by our side, we are committed to shaping the future of fast food—one that prioritizes inclusivity, equity, and a strong focus on advancement of people, caring for the planet, and enhancing our communities. We look forward to sharing more progress in our 2024 Corporate Responsibility report that we expect to publish next spring.