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Packaging design is a fundamental part of our top quality customer service. Many of our menu offerings have unique packaging designs to provide insulation, help ensure food safety, and make them convenient for carryout. This gives us many ongoing opportunities to minimize the environmental impacts of our packaging and to provide industry leadership in natural resource conservation.
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| Overview of Our Food Packaging |
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In our major markets, approximately 83% of the packaging used for food, beverages, and other consumer purposes is made of some form of paper or other wood-fiber material. The remainder is made of a variety of thermoplastics.
Since the early 1990s, we have focused on two major environmental impacts of our packaging—the total amount of material used and the percentage of the material that is recycled content. In 2005, total packaging weight in eight of our nine major markets was 0.14 pounds per transaction count ( each total cost rung up in the cash register). Recycled paper made up 31.5% of the total material used.
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| For examples of what we've done to make our packaging more environmentally friendly, read our Vice President for Corporate Social Responsibility's blog entry on packaging design. Then see some examples from around the world in our "Less Is More" video. |
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| Expanding Our Approach to Packaging Impacts |
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We are pleased with what we have accomplished, but also believe we can do more. So, in collaboration with our principal packaging supplier, we have developed a comprehensive set of environmental guidelines for consumer packaging. These establish a hierarchy of preferences that enter into decisions on new and modified packaging, along with considerations of functionality, availability, and cost. In priority order, the guidelines are:
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- Eliminating unnecessary packaging.
- Favoring use of materials made from renewable sources.
- Reducing the total amount of material used in our packaging.
- Designing consumer packaging for its capacity to be recycled or composted.
- Favoring materials and processes that minimize pollution—for example, maximizing the use of recycled content and unbleached fiber.
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| Our supplier is now using these guidelines to assess proposed packaging designs. |
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| Supporting Sustainable Forests |
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The forests that provide raw materials for paper and other wood fiber materials are under significant pressures due to worldwide consumer and industry demands. Using recycled content, as we try to do, can somewhat alleviate the pressures. But this approach has practical and regulatory limits, and it does not address all environmental threats. We have, therefore, been working on several fronts to incorporate environmentally responsible fiber procurement practices into our packaging supply chain.
We are closely following the debate about how to define a “well-managed forest.” Ultimately, we hope to adopt a global forest certification program that reliably designates forests that are actively managed with attention to long-term economic, environmental, and social impacts.
In the meantime, we are evaluating options for a global forestry policy. It would build on a sustainable forestry policy and related guidelines that McDonald's Europe completed in late 2004 and is now working with its suppliers to implement.
We are also participating, through our primary packaging supplier, in two multi-stakeholder collaborations—the Paper Working Group and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. Both seek to promote practices that would help make packaging more consistent with the long-term health of the environment.
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