McDonalds Recognized for Social & Environmental Efforts by Ceres
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA 
on 10.21.05
Ceres, the national network working to advance corporate environmental stewardship, has added McDonalds Corp. to its list of approved businesses. The Golden Arches, which have caused a stir on these pages before (several stirs, actually), was cited by the Ceres board of directors for making progress on sustainability reporting and for their ongoing commitment to enhancing its social and environmental performance. "From energy efficiency, to food resource sustainability, to 'greening' its supply chain, McDonald's has made great strides improving its social and environmental performance," said Ceres President Mindy S. Lubber. "More importantly, the company wants to do even more."
Among McDonalds' efforts are responsible purchasing programs designed to protect fishing stocks, animal welfare and forest resources; balanced lifestyle and nutrition initiatives that focus on more menu choices, additional food and nutrition information, and the promotion of physical activity; and a far-reaching Supplier Code of Conduct to ensure safe and healthy work environments and fair compensation and work schedules for employees.
Many of the company's programs are the result of stakeholder collaboration with animal welfare experts, environmental groups, paper suppliers, shareholders and dozens of others, according to a Ceres press release.
Companies that join Ceres must commit to engage with shareholders and other stakeholders on sustainability issues, to report publicly on sustainability performance and to make additional sustainability improvements. McDonald's is among 65 companies - including nearly a dozen Fortune 500 companies - to be accepted into the Ceres network. ::Ceres via ::GreenBiz
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Hello
"McDonald's has made great strides improving its social and environmental performance,"
I suppose going from a horrible company to just a very very bad company is an improvement worth noting.?
With all due respect to organizations like Ceres, it seems the movement is on the verge of being over-run by hucksters and farce. I’m loving it.
Yes they are of course dodgy, but I love the idea of the "worst" corporate machines hopefully one day (500 years maybe? LOL, then crying a little) using their un-arguable skills in the right way.
Is it going to be a corporate monster that finally delivers/evolves a chain of healthy/enviro fast food to the world due to new consumer desires? Maybe good food for us and the planet doesn't need "chains".
Some people I know believe that it doesn't matter what sustainable resources go into products or what direction corporations travel, their very nature and that of our whole system needs to be totally abolished or changed.
I personally have some faith in capitalism and reasonably free markets, or at the very least am curious to see what "products" will be created in the future.
Could the correct/sustainable use of resources start to actually alter the framework of the corporate/capitalist systems creating them? This is my naive hope, and I think to some degree the hope of many looking at/maybe even creating this site.
Let me get this right. Is Treehugger basically a site set up to showcase "green" capitalism?
Please, could someone who actually knows what they are talking about or at least someone with some academic "authority" answer this. Or I will be wondering around in my undergraduate, quasi educated haze forever. LOL.
Maybe if they were all Chipotle with free range meats on the menu, but they're just not.
Is this an A for Effort? Is this a Jr. High School competition or a real acknowledgment?
sounds like perfect greenwashing to me. ceres and greenbiz.com sound like a mcdonald's public relation agency. they don't even mention the horrible record of this huge corporate thug. in short: i don't believe that!
read more about mcdonald's:
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1106573726371
http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12099
http://www.geocities.com/vramc/
http://www.oikos.org/ecology/mcdonalds2.htm
http://www.mcspotlight.org/
how much did they get for promoting mcdonald's?
Baffled! Quite baffled! What next? Nestle being given an award for their nurturing of humankind? Proctor and Gamble being seen as okay because they only test SOME of their products on animals?
ESSO being praised for telling us how they are funding renewables?
Some leopards just don't change their spots.
The term GreenWashing comes to mind.