2Sustain

McDonald’s Corporation is stepping up its commitment to a sustainable supply chain.

Last week, the company announced a new Sustainable Land Management Commitment (SLMC), which McDonald’s says will ensure the food served in its restaurants around the world is sourced from certified sustainable sources.

The SLMC requires that, over time, McDonald’s suppliers source agricultural raw materials for the company’s food and packaging only from sustainably-managed land.

Initially, McDonald’s will focus on the five raw materials that have the most potential sustainability impacts: beef, poultry, coffee, palm oil and packaging. As part of this commitment, McDonald’s is:

• working with a multi-stakeholder group, the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, and select Regional Roundtables, to improve the sustainability of beef production.

• piloting a three-year beef farm study – the largest of its kind – to investigate the carbon emissions on 350 beef farms across the UK and Ireland.

• joining the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) this year and pledging to source only RSPO-certified Palm Oil by 2015.

• participating in the Sustainability Consortium, an independent organization dedicated to implementing measureable progress based on life-cycle science.

“We know that our customers care about where their food comes from,” said Francesca DeBiase, McDonald’s vice president for Strategic Sourcing. “McDonald’s and our suppliers have taken many positive steps in the past 20 years to improve the sustainability of our supply chain, and now we’re reaching even higher with our vision for sourcing all of our food and packaging from certified sustainable sources.”

The Sustainable Land Management Commitment was announced in conjunction with the release of McDonald’s 2010 Worldwide Corporate Responsibility (CR) Report, and you can read more about it at www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/csr/report.html.