McDonald's Wraps Up a Pledge

Company Offsets Impacts of Earlier Packaging Changes

Posted: 01-Jun-2004; Updated: 09-Sep-2004

You might not notice that your McDonald's fry container feels a bit lighter, but the environment will. The company recently reduced the weight of the paper used in its fry cartons and increased the postconsumer recycled content of its napkins. These improvements, among others, helped McDonald's meet a commitment to offset the adverse environmental impacts of packaging changes the company made last fall. Those changes included moving several of its sandwiches from paper wraps to rigid containers and switching to bleached white carryout bags.

After discussions with Environmental Defense, McDonald's agreed to offset the impacts of those changes through packaging improvements elsewhere. We monitored the company's progress and confirmed in May that the company had offset the impacts and then some, achieving additional improvements beyond our targets. "These actions show that with hard work and a little ingenuity, companies can optimize both their business and their environmental performance," says our program manager Gwen Ruta.

Background
McDonald's Changes Packaging, Pledges to Offset Environmental Impacts
 Visit our Paper and Packaging section for more information