Late in 2009, MMA began a dialogue with McDonald’s Corporation on issues of food and water safety and sustainability. Along with several other faith-based investors, MMA is encouraging McDonald’s to pursue reductions in energy use and packaging, the greening of its food supply chain and higher food safety standards.

Progress is being made in several areas, including pesticide use reduction among farmers who grow potatoes for McDonald’s. The company is also prioritizing greater integration of safety and quality control systems into its beef sourcing. Additionally, McDonald’s has shown interest in working toward antibiotic-use reduction with its meat suppliers.

Greening the fast food industry entails some unique challenges. Fast food restaurants follow a business model based on the low-cost feeding of millions of people. Therefore, companies like McDonald’s will never fit niche markets – sustainability efforts must be carefully designed to be achievable on a grand level. While the sheer scale of this undertaking is challenging, it also ensures that any positive change will have a large, worldwide impact.

MMA will soon begin more specific conversations with McDonald’s on single aspects of its sustainability policies.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 3:55 pm and is filed under MMA, Environment, Chris. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.