Our Planet
We’re helping to drive climate action, protecting natural resources, reducing waste and transitioning to more sustainable packaging and toys.
Our Priority Issues
In partnership with our Franchisees, suppliers and producers, we’re finding innovative ways to reduce emissions, keep waste out of nature and preserve natural resources.
We believe that reducing emissions and adapting to climate change is critical to helping improve the resiliency of the McDonald’s System. We work toward our climate action ambitions by focusing on reducing emissions in restaurant operations, engaging suppliers to reduce emissions in supply chains, strengthening our business resilience and using our voice to advocate for collective transformation.
Our packaging, toys and waste strategies are designed to help keep communities clean, help protect the planet for future generations and support the Company’s long-term business resilience. To achieve this, we’re evolving our packaging – redesigning some of our most iconic products to eliminate unnecessary packaging, identifying alternative materials and increasing opportunities for recovery.
We aim to help manage nature-related risks and build resilience by working with suppliers and farmers to help preserve natural ecosystems, including forests, enhance biodiversity and safeguard water.
Discover how our commitments are guiding our responsible sourcing, as well as how we are building resilience into our business in a changing world. We are also committed to respecting the human rights of the people who work across the System.
Recent Highlights
Climate Action
- Our global science-based target, which we revised in 2023, has been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and covers all three emission scopes in line with a 1.5˚C warming scenario.
- We are tying our commitment to eliminate deforestation in priority commodities to climate action, using the SBTi’s Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) framework to calculate and address our emissions associated with land use change.
- We have signed deals, along with our North American Logistics Council (NALC), to purchase renewable energy and associated renewable energy certificates.
Packaging, Toys & Waste
- By the end of 2023, we were approximately 86.7% of the way toward our goal of sourcing 100% of our primary guest packaging from renewable, recycled or certified materials.1 2 3
- From 2018–2023, we reduced virgin fossil fuel-based plastic in Happy Meal toys by 63.7%.4
- In 2023, more than 88.3% of restaurants in markets with advanced infrastructure 5 offered guests the opportunity to recycle and/or compost packaging items.
Nature, Forests & Water
- Refreshed our Commitment on Forests and Natural Ecosystems (PDF – 126 KB) that details our efforts to eliminate deforestation and address conversion for commodities and regions where we can deliver the greatest impact.
- Further strengthened global sustainable sourcing policies and compliance processes that help bring our commitment to life.
- Engaged in a more sustainable landscape initiative in Kutai Timur, Indonesia, helping support local communities, smallholders and palm oil and rubber plantation workers to benefit from a more sustainably managed landscape that aims to reduce forestry and land-use emissions.
Related News
- Composting & Community: How Arcos Dorados is Embracing More Sustainable Practices in Brazil
- Doing Décor Differently: McDonald’s France Debuts Circular Restaurant Design
- Dressed to Impress: McDonald’s Debuts New, More Sustainable Uniforms in the U.S.
Reporting Across Our Purpose & Impact
For a comprehensive view of our progress and actions in 2023, please see our Goal Performance & Reporting page.
This section of our website – Our Purpose & Impact – acts as the primary platform for our foundational approach, strategies and policies over each of our priority environmental and social issues, alongside recent progress highlights. In addition to our overall approach to issues, our goals and performance work in tandem to advance transformation across our four Impact Areas, helping us drive meaningful impact.
Related Issues
Additional issues across our four pillars include:
Footnotes
1 Packaging. Scope: Inclusive of all markets for our fiber-based packaging and Happy Meal book and toy packaging. For our plastic-based packaging, all markets are included except for Israel, Latin America and Turkey. Renewable sources refers to material that is composed of biomass from a living source and that can be continually replenished. Renewable applies to plastics only, not fiber. Source: ISO 14021:2016 for plastic, ASTM 6866 or ISO 16620-2. Fiber-based packaging made from 100% recycled sources must be third-party verified, unless certified under a Chain of Custody Forest Management standard. McDonald’s requires all wood fiber sourced from Argentina, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Russia and Vietnam to be Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) certified or FSC® controlled wood sources with full chain of custody certification. Perfluorinated compounds are known to be historically persistent in the environment. McDonald’s commits to not intentionally adding fluorinated compounds through our processes, but fluorinated compounds present in the local environment make it difficult to remove all traces of fluorine from packaging. Please refer to our Nature, Forests & Water web page for additional definitions. Exclusions: Primary fiber-based packaging in food packaged off-site of McDonald’s restaurants, tray liners and limited locally sourced items.
2 Non-structural components of packaging vary based on the packaging but may include adhesives, inks, overprint varnishes, retention agents or binders, processing aids, impact modifiers, minerals used non-structurally and nucleating and clarifying agents. We continue to monitor industry standards on these components and opportunities to work toward making any part of our packaging, including non-structural components, more sustainable.
3 In 2022, we saw a decrease in the percentage of our primary guest packaging sourced from renewable, recycled or certified materials as compared to 2021 due to deployment of packaging materials not yet compliant with our goal standards. We know progress in this space is not always linear and we intend to continue making supply chain improvements to meet our packaging sourcing standards and remain committed to our 2025 goal.
4 Toys. Scope: Inclusive of all toys. Fiber-based toys or fiber components in the toys: 100% certified fiber required. All other materials: McDonald’s ambition is to reduce the use of virgin fossil fuel-based plastics, offer sustainable toys by the end of 2025 and not manufacture electronics and batteries in Happy Meal toys globally. For bio- and plant-based plastics to be considered sustainable for McDonald’s, a minimum of 60% of plastic weight is required to come from recycled or renewable content or a combination of recycled and renewable content, though in many practical applications we anticipate that percentage will be much higher. The remaining 40% may be conventional fossil fuel-based material. These thresholds were developed in conjunction with input from NGOs, external manufacturing partners and scientists, and based on an assessment of sustainable toy and packaging industry leaders so that our targets reflected current sustainable engineering capabilities to maintain safety and functionality. Our efforts will result in an approximate 90% reduction in virgin fossil fuel-based plastic use against a 2018 baseline. Fiber-based packaging made from 100% recycled sources must be third-party verified, unless certified under a Chain of Custody Forest Management standard. Source: ISO 14021:2016. McDonald’s requires all wood fiber sourced from Argentina, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Russia and Vietnam to be Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) certified or FSC® controlled wood sources with full chain of custody certification. The thresholds described above do not include the presence of adhesives, glues, inks, paints and coatings.
5 Markets with advanced infrastructure: Mature waste and recycling infrastructure at a national level that has (1) a recycling infrastructure network across the entire market, (2) multiple materials being recycled within this national infrastructure network, (3) existing legislation on recycling and (4) high customer awareness of waste and recycling. At the end of 2023, that included 21 markets where McDonald’s operates.
