When big companies need to squeeze out greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, do you think they’ll do the work themselves? Or will they force their suppliers to do the work?

As you suspected, it’s the suppliers who are the ultimate targets of this latest GHG reduction effort.

But in this case, burger chain McDonald’s is putting its money down first — to fund a three-year project to find a way to reduce methane emissions from the 350,000 cattle that supply the U.K. chain with hamburger every year.

McDonald’s U.K. just announced that it will study cow flatulence on 350 of the 16,000 farms that supply the fast-food giant with beef in Britain and Ireland.

The food industry in Brittan is under pressure to find ways to reduce GHG emissions as part of a recently adopted and first-ever food strategy, Food 2030, that’s designed to improve the sustainability of all aspects of farming.

Cow emissions are big targets because methane from cows accounts for 4% of the U.K.’s total carbon emissions, and methane is 23 times more potent as a global warming gas that carbon dioxide (CO2).

Hamburgers are climate change culprits because producing a single cheeseburger releases nearly 3.1kg of CO2, according to a report in The Telegraph. Multiply that by the billions of burgers sold by McD’s a year.

The first results on cow methane emissions will be released this spring by energy audit consultants, the E-CO2 Project.

McDonald’s worldwide has found a wide variety of ways to reduce its corporate footprint with economically sound ideas that reduce energy use and cut electric bills.

Tags: climate change, Food 2030, GHG emissions, McDonald's, methane