McDonalds, the fast food chain, has a long-standing record of industry leadership in environmental conservation. They have been recognized with awards by Audubon Society, Conservation International, Keep America Beautiful, the National Recycling Coalition and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. McDonalds is committed to implementing green practices in many aspects of the company.
Neighborhoods
McDonalds works closely with local neighborhoods to keep their streets and parks clean and attractive. They have regular litter patrols that go around the restaurants to ensure there is little to no litter around. The owners/managers also support local clean-up days, and offer free meals for volunteers.
Restaurants
Even within the restaurants, McDonalds provides a broad range of initiatives including:
Solid Waste Management
Along with Environmental Defense, McDonalds works to reduce was in the operations by:
- Reducing the amount of material originally used
- Recycling what they can
- Using products made by recycled content
So far, they have already made great strides in these areas. With making changes to their packaging, they have already reduced 8.5 million pounds per year.
Electrical Energy Conservation
In the 1990s, McDonalds replaced their regular lighting to more energy-efficient fluorescent lighting. They are a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Light program, which is an award given by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to those who implement “green” lighting practices.
Supply chain
McDonalds works with the Conservational International to integrate socially responsible practices into their worldwide supply chain. Within their supply chain practices is the “responsible purchasing,” which is a program to include supplier social accountability “to protect the health, safety and human rights of the workers” and customers.
In 2003, McDonalds opened their first HFC/HCF/CFC-free restaurant in Denmark to see if these new practices would help the effects on global warming.
Policies
McDonalds’ Web site has a separate page for their Corporate Environmental Responsibility. This includes their ongoing commitment to reduce (with regards to their packaging) reuse (use reusable materials whenever possible) and recycle (maximum use of recycled materials in every day practices).
McDonalds has a surprisingly large amount of practices that serve to protect and enhance the world we live in. Since many of these initiatives were developed and implemented in the late 1990s, it will be interesting to see how McDonalds’ commitment to environmental conservation will grow in the future.
Hmmm. . . interesting. I’d like more details about some aspects of this, however. The clean-up of litter, for example. . . what are the parameters of that kind of thing and how does it actually work? Seems like I’ve seen many McDonalds with lots of trash hanging around.
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