Monday, 22 September 2014

A Review of Sustainable Development Approaches Undertaken by Leading Global Businesses

1.     Executive Summary

The researcher by way of this report has endeavoured to bring to light the motives behind sustainable environmental practices program initiated by global businesses such as McDonald’s and KFC. The report structure has utilised the five pillars (corporate operations, restaurant operations, sustainable operations, advocacy & partnerships and culture & communication) of responsible business practices laid down by McDonalds to compare and contrast with the approach in sustainable business practices followed by KFC.
The findings of the report have been astounding. McDonald’s which has widely advertised its environment friendly approaches has done a mere window dressing of the issue. The organisation which owns only a third of the outlets (approx 250 out of a total of 869) in Australia has implemented the sustainable development programs as mere pilot projects at selected owned outlets only and has failed to generalise any such approaches to its mass business environment. On the other hand KFC’s actions in this regard have been more convincing, as the fast food giant has been able to implement the green approaches at more than 75% of its outlets. Sections in this report carefully analyse and compare the efforts made by each organisation based on facts published in their annual CSR reports and various scholarly articles.





















Table of Contents


2.     Introduction

In the recent years an increasing number of global businesses are developing approaches to sustainable development, which can be incorporated in their usual business dynamics. Some of these businesses are making these environmentally conscious (and social development related) decisions to mitigate the negative criticisms levied on their operations by various interest groups (such as environment protection organisations such as, Greenpeace); others are incorporating such an ideology as a proactive measure to ensure a greener tomorrow and nurture healthy relationships with communities.
The subject of this particular paper is to study the approaches to sustainable development undertaken by McDonalds (which is a global fast food giant). Also this paper will contrast the choices made by McDonalds as against those made by another global leader in food retail, KFC (Refer to Appendix 1 for a statistical comparison of the two companies). The purpose of this exercise will be to firstly, state the various achievements and initiatives of the organisations in question; secondly, to analyse the motive behind such actions; and lastly to determine the efficacy of such programs in sustainable development, on implementation.
The structure of this paper will closely follow analysing the five pillar program to sustainable development laid down by McDonald’s. This consists of, corporate operations, Restaurant operations, Sustainable operations, Advocacy & Partnerships and Culture & Communication.

3.     Corporate Operations

Corporate operation is the heart of all sustainable development approaches McDonald’s currently employs. Corporate is that part of the business framework which makes all crucial decisions regarding the operation of the actual business of McDonald’s. All environmentally conscious ideas such as using bio fuel in delivery trucks to cleaning drives have their inception and implementation done by the corporate. Of late the McDonald’s corporate has shown strong solidarity for environmental and health concerns by participating in the Earth hour campaign and promoting it through its restaurants, and by making its marketing approach more responsible by reducing the advertisement of toys to attract children to the restaurant, by 80% since 2002.
KFC’s corporate operations show a similar trend when compared to operations of McDonald’s. The global fast food retail giant has shown concern towards the communities the business impacts and has taken measures to align its businesses to environmentally responsible methods like responsible sourcing of chicken, recycling of packaging and reducing adverse environmental impact of its restaurant holdings to minimise adverse effects on the environment and minimising costs of business operations incurred by the community (by way of depletion of common resources such as quality of air and water).
However, operations of the fast food giant have been criticised, as a defensive move to counter negative criticisms rather than an exercise in pro actively managing sustainable growth. Critics have been stern in accusing McDonald’s of following approaches such as advertising toys to lure kids into the restaurant promoting unhealthy food habits among an immature population. Also, the junk food giant has been accused of ignoring the harmful effects of mass producing of standardised agro products at the lowest prices, leading to depletion of natural resources and adversely affecting the availability of food supplies to the general population.
It can be summed up, that McDonald’s and KFC need to be pro active in assuming the role of a leader in sustainable development, in its industry, rather than being defensive in taking up such policies in order to mitigate criticism.

4.     Restaurant Operations

McDonald’s has taken a variety of steps to lower greenhouse gas emissions and reduce carbon footprint of its restaurants. This has been done chiefly by:
4.1  Reducing water usage by using efficient equipment and incorporating rain water harvesting systems while landscaping.
4.2  Minimise energy usage by using energy efficient equipment such as LED lighting.
4.3  Innovating on packaging and products such as napkin dispensers to reduce wastage and use of materials.
4.4  Recycling by products and wastes in the processes and operating cleaning drives to keep surrounding clean.
KFC has undertaken certain similar steps in making its restaurants eco friendly. Overall it has been able to reduce CO2 emissions by 25% per tonne of construction material used by using alternatives for timber products and sustainable material. Simple thoughtful steps like reducing electric signage and using covered bike racks to reduce four wheeler use has resulted in savings as well as reducing carbon footprint. Technologies like dual flush cistern and waterless urinals have helped save 92,000 litres/ year per restaurant.   
Although organisations such as PETA may still argue that McDonald’s processing beef wastes ten times the water needed to process vegetarian food, it is important to note that the use of current eco friendly energy efficient processes and equipment have resulted in various benefits accruing to the company. In case of McDonald’s this has been by way of benefits such as reduction in water usage by 60% in case of spray guns, reducing energy usage by 50% in car parks by using LED lights, new fry vats which utilise 40% less oil in cooking and the like. KFC has benefitted in a similar manner. However, where implementation of such programs has already been done across almost all KFC holdings, McDonald’s is running green technologies in its restaurants only at certain limited facilities, mostly as pilot projects. Nevertheless the result of implementing ‘green measures’ has not only made actual cash savings for this business but have also helped in spreading a positive word about them.

5.     Sustainable operations

Of late, McDonald’s has undertaken various measures to make its operations sustainable in context of environment protection. Innovating in areas like using used cooking oil as biodiesel to fuel delivery trucks, innovative packaging to minimise wastage of materials, waste management to reduce waste diversion to landfills and ensure recycling and use of recycled products in various operations, are just some of the steps in this regard. 
KFC is of a similar view when it comes to sustainable operations. However, unlike McDonald’s most of KFC’s environmental programs are implemented across majority of its restaurants. For example, each year 7.75m Litres of low trans fat vegetable oil is collected from KFC restaurants in the UK to be converted into biodiesel to fuel delivery trucks. On the other hand, McDonald’s sustainable development program have been criticised as being mere lip service when it comes to Corporate Social Responsibility. Majority of its programs lack any environmental value until they are introduced on a mass level. For instance the use of biodiesel is limited to the units operating in Victoria; most sustainable operations are limited to specific restaurants as pilot projects (that too only company owned restaurants which are about 250 out of over 869 functioning McDonald’s restaurants in Australia). Critics are also of the view, that McDonald’s has failed to address issues like depletion of soil and pollution caused due to mass standardised farming practices encouraged by McDonald’s.
To sum up, it can be said that while KFC has published certain measurable progress and benefits of its various initiatives, McDonald’s programs are more of painting a rosy picture of the company than producing some actual results.

6.     Advocacy and Partnerships

McDonald’s has joined hands with certain organisations to build awareness on certain issues as well as to make the objectives of these organisations a part of its own policies.
6.1   Rainforest Alliance- McDonald’s has sourced 1.5 million kilograms of coffee for its Australian operations from Rainforest Alliance program certified farms; promoting sustainable agricultural practices and forest conservation in context of coffee plantations.
6.2   Foodbank Australia- Partnering with Foodbank to divert all excess food supplies to the bank, helping make Australia hunger free.
6.3   Roundtable for sustainable beef Australia (RSBA)- McDonald’s is one of the founding members of this organisation promoting ethical and sustainable practices in beef supply chain.
KFC also focuses on certain such alliances to advocate and promote the cause of certain organisations. KFC is a signatory to the Australian packaging covenant; which requires it to follow sustainable development approaches while designing and implementing packaging, reducing wastage and encouraging recycle of materials used. Also KFC has heeded to pleas of organisations such as PETA and is advocating responsible sourcing and humane treatment and slaughter of chicken, which is a primary raw material for most KFC preparations.
Critics are of the view that organisations such as McDonald’s by creating in house programs such as RSBA are only promoting their own cause than doing any actual good to the environment. Concern groups such as PETA (Fig 1.1 and 1.2) have criticised McDonald’s for cruel practices in procurement of meat products. Despite having a mechanism such as RSBA in place, McDonald’s fails to monitor the actual ranches where the beef producing cattle is raised. Other programs such as Rainforest Alliance and Foodbank have been undertaken in only limited markets and only limited procurement is done under such programs. Adverse effects of farming practices encouraged by McDonald’s has been criticised by international environment watchdog Greenpeace.
True that the businesses are at times dressing up their operations to make a positive impression however, certain practices have real benefits associated with them. For example adhering to Australian packaging covenant (by KFC) has really helped reduce environmental impact and result in savings for the fast food retailer (Fig 2.1).

7.     Culture and Communication

McDonald’s is trying to build a culture of sustainable environment friendly practices among its various stakeholders. For instance, employees at various facilities volunteer in the clean drive programs aimed to make neighbourhoods litter free, customer’s are also requested (by notices near or in the restaurant) not to litter, and the organisation participates in endeavours such as Earth Hour (initiated by World Wildlife Fund) by not only switching off electric equipment at its offices but also promoting the cause by printing material to educate customers at its various restaurants. Overall, the promotion of such a culture and communicating it to third parties, actions groups and governments can be viewed as an exercise in building favourable public relations however, the representatives of the organisation say that it is just a part of the core beliefs of the organisation.
KFC follows a similar culture of promoting environmental sustainability and community development. Especially its environment sustainability approaches which have been generalised to a major part of its restaurant holdings. Also KFC has been under major criticism from various interest groups like PETA. In recent years KFC has made an effort to heed to these criticism and modify its approaches to commonly acceptable ones such as humane treatment of animals and responsible sourcing of supplies.
Comparing the culture and communication of both the organisation it may be said that both of them may be doing it to guise the negative effects of their various processes. However, one may see some consistency of approach and dedication in case of KFC where the non vegetarian fast food company even makes efforts to generalise the practices on a scalable level across the organisation. However, in case of McDonald’s it seems as half hearted efforts done more to please critics than to actually bring about a change. Most of the points stated in its annual corporate responsibility and sustainability report seem like mere ideas which are yet to be put in action - without any stated measurable results, until now.

8.     Conclusion

Essentially KFC is an organisation which seems committed to incorporate sustainable environment development practices in its various business functions. On the other hand, McDonald’s though superficially seems to be following a similar approach, has failed to scale up such practices to be implemented across majority of its facilities. Although both of them seem to have taken up sustainable development approaches to mitigate opposition and criticism slammed by various interests groups and governments, KFC has made actual efforts to improve and has been thorough in implementing change. While McDonalds’ efforts still lack commitment and are mere window dressing to address the opposition.   
By comparing McDonalds and KFC across the five parameters laid down by McDonalds itself, the various differences in approach to handling the issue of sustainable development has come to light by the medium of this paper.

9.     References        

1.    McDonalds’ corporate responsibility and sustainability report 2012.
2.    Moore E.S. & R.J. Lutz (2000). Children, Advertising, and Product Experience: A multi-method inquiry. Journal of consumer research, 27(1),June, 31-6
3.    McDonald’s Report: More Corporate Social Irresponsibility By Paul Hawken

4.    Can McDonald's lead in green? By Jennifer Inez Ward; Published April 30, 2012 (Green Biz.com)

5.    McDonald’s CSR Report A Nutritious Meal, But Critics Want More; Andrew W. Singer; May/June 2009
6.    Yum! Restaurants Australia Pty. Ltd. Australian Packaging Covenant Action Plan 2010 – 2015
7.    www.kfcdevelopment.co.uk/sustainability
9.       McDonald's: We Need To Define What 'Sustainable' Beef Means; The Huffington Post  |  By Rachel Tepper Posted: 09/27/2012 2:45 pm

 Fig 1.1
 Fig 1.2

Fig 2.1
Shows percentage of various packaging materials used by YUM food brands KFC and Pizza Hut in Australia.






Appendix 1

McDonald's

KFC

Overview
 Over 31,000 restaurants in 118 countries; $23.5 billion revenue, 400,000 employees

 Over 17,000 locations in over 115 countries, $9.5 billion revenue (FY09); 190,000 partners (employees)

Product
Premium salads, fruit and yogurt parfait, and apple dippers in Happy Meal choices; packaging gives customers essential nutrition information in easy-to-understand icon and bar chart format

Chicken preparations, like sandwiches, chicken wraps and pressure fried chicken.

Management
Practices
Carefully managing supply chain to control costs and implement sustainability, and developing an environmental scorecard to measure supplier performance

Managing supply chain and implementing green measures in a way to ensure savings too. Sustainable approaches generally influenced by criticism from groups such as PETA and Greenpeace.


Earth
About 82% of the consumer packaging used in its nine largest markets made from renewable materials and 30% of the material comes from recycled fiber. Despite testing of innovative materials, have not yet identified more sustainable packaging materials that are commercially viable
Use of recycled packaging material and alternative material to reduce environmental impact and keeping sustainable approaches in mind while design packaging has resulted in savings and reducing carbon footprint of KFC. 
Trust
Guidelines to determine the sustainability of fisheries developed in partnership with Conservation International
Responsible sourcing of chicken and fish (and other animal products), reducing carbon footprint by thoughtfully designing packaging and restaurant facilities are some of the initiatives to develop trust among various stakeholders.   























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