Challenges and opportunities
To sum up, our biggest challenge as we move toward our sustainable supply vision is the fact that we do not directly do business with many parts of our extensive supply chain. We recognize our responsibilities related to sustainability among our indirect supply, and we will continue to use our size and influence to work with industry representatives, governments, and NGOs to make a positive impact, as we did in the case of soya farming in the Amazon. We aim to make our supply system not only more sustainable, but also safer, more efficient and more reliable.
Goals (2008-2010)
Our Sustainable Supply Working Group has established three top priorities for our global supply chain over the next two years:
1. Educate and communicate with our supply system about sustainability.
In our highly decentralized company, it has been difficult to organize around a common understanding of what sustainability means to us and to work together with our suppliers to move forward as a system. By laying out our key responsibilities and priorities and ensuring that our purchasing managers and suppliers are aware of them, we expect to empower our entire supply chain to work together to make faster progress toward our common vision.
2. Develop a comprehensive global forestry policy.
We have forestry policies for beef and packaging, but in recent years we have learned that there are many other products in our supply chain that are sometimes associated with deforestation of rain forests or other valuable natural habitats. Our goal is to create a holistic forestry policy that will apply to all products purchased anywhere in our System and ensure that we are doing our part to protect those natural ecosystems.
3. Measure environmental impacts in our supply chain.
By continuing to roll out our environmental scorecard to suppliers, we will be able to help them identify their biggest impacts and opportunities for improvement in the areas of energy use, water use, air emissions, and waste production. McDonald’s Europe is also helping our entire system to better understand its biggest impacts and opportunities in the area of carbon reduction, by completing a carbon footprint analysis of its regional supply chain.
