CI and McDonald’s Corporation continue to build on our almost 20 years of partnership by finding new was to tie together on-the-ground conservation efforts with an educational outreach campaign geared towards teaching kids about the importance of protecting threatened species.
McDonald’s Europe recently launched a special Happy Meal promotion – in partnership with CI – to engage kids in a fun and informative way about protecting the environment. The “Endangered Animals Happy Meal” features information about eight species of endangered animals and how they are being threatened by climate change.
Each of the Happy Meal boxes features CI’s logo and points kids to a specially designed website with additional games and information about all eight animals and tips kids can use to help the environment. McDonald’s Europe created a short video about the partnership with CI and also made a significant contribution to support three projects led by CI and its partners to protect tropical forests of Cambodia, Sumatra and the Congo, which are home to Asian elephants, tigers and gorillas.
Building on our joint efforts to talk to kids and families about conservation in a fun and unique way, we are working together to protect pandas and panda habitats. As DreamWorks’ newest feature “Kung Fu Panda” was a hit in theatres in the summer of 2008, CI joined forces with McDonald’s to educate kids about Po’s real life cousins, the Giant Panda. As part of the outreach efforts, we are providing kids with an opportunity to see wild pandas – and their friends – up close through special “panda-cams” set up by scientists in China.
From Happy Meals to websites, CI and McDonald’s have a unique opportunity to harness the excitement and fun of these promotions to empower kids to make conservation part of their everyday lives and to create positive environmental solutions for our planet.
A Long History of Working Together
True conservation is a mix of educational opportunities and serious work in the field. McDonald’s has been working with CI for nearly two decades to develop innovative solutions that benefit the environment and their business. Much of this work focuses on supporting McDonald's sustainable supply chain and achieving conservation benefits by developing and demonstrating ways to advance resource and biodiversity conservation, including their membership in CI's Business and Biodiversity Council. Below you will see a snapshot of the wide range of activities we have taken on together. But stay tuned, as we look to explore additional ways that our unique collaboration can have positive impacts for our planet.
Panda Guardians
In addition to creating more awareness about the plight of the panda, McDonald’s is also providing direct support to our efforts to protect wild pandas by working with “Panda Guardians.” Panda Guardians include the staff of nature reserves that shelter pandas, local communities living near pandas or sharing the same landscape, as well as conservation scientists who study and design conservation research and action to protect pandas. In essence, Panda Guardians are a localized network working together to monitor pandas and other species, patrolling and protecting panda habitat, and continuously monitoring activities to ensure that our work is yielding the best possible results. Working with Panda Guardians goes to the heart of CI’s mission: demonstrating that human societies can live harmoniously with nature.
This work directly feeds into a larger Panda Survival Plan which has set the ambitious yet achievable goal of protecting all known panda habitat and ultimately securing the long term survival of wild panda and the other plants and animals that share their habitat.
Bee Good to the Planet
In the Fall of 2007, McDonald’s and CI collaborated on the launch of The Bee Movie Happy Meal. CI helped develop an online Bee Good to the Planet, which encouraged children to become more active with environmental issues and get outside to enjoy what their local environments have to offer. In addition, McDonald’s generously pledged funds to directly assist crucial bee habitats in Mexico and South Africa that will help ensure that these important species continue to pollinate for a long time to come.
Socially Responsible Food Supply Guidelines
In 2002, McDonald’s and CI partnered through CI’s then newly formed Center for Environmental Leadership in Business to develop and demonstrate ways to incorporate sustainability and conservation criteria into McDonald’s food supply chain in an economically achievable way.
Supplier Environmental Scorecard
One of the major accomplishments of this initiative was the development of an environmental scorecard to help McDonald’s suppliers’ measure and improve upon four key areas of environmental impact including water use, energy use, solid waste, and air emissions. First piloted in 2005, this scorecard continues to be expanded globally to McDonald’s key commodity suppliers.
Sustainable Fisheries
McDonald’s and CI established a sustainable fisheries program which guides all of McDonald’s global fish purchases. The program provides a simple “stop light” model of red, yellow, green system based on the overall health and quality of the fishery from a conservation perspective. The system is designed to help identify areas for improvement in fisheries management and related marine conservation. This program has led to the shifting of more than 20 million tons of fish away from unsustainable sources to sustainable sources, since 2001.
Coming Together to Save a Biodiversity-Rich Reserve in Cost Rica and Panama Amisconde
From 1991 to 1997 CI partnered with McDonald’s on the Amistad Conservation and Development Initiative “Amisconde.” This was an important bi-national project that focused on the important buffer zones around the 4.4 million acre La Amistad Biosphere Reserve that stretches from Costa Rica into Panama.
The project set up a proactive management strategy in these buffer zones that worked directly with the local residents in Costa Rica and Panama on issues including forestry, agriculture, soil conservation, environmental education, and community development. Hundreds of acres of land not suitable for cultivation were reforested, additional cleared land was left to regenerate naturally and cattle farmers were shown how to better manage their livestock. The project also set up a credit system managed by the farmers themselves, allowing them to establish soil-conservation projects, start tree nurseries, and establish environmentally friendly products and businesses.
A McDonald’s representative sat on the Executive Committee overseeing the Amisconde project and McDonald’s helped fund portions of the project through its global operations and members of its supply chain – including Coca-Cola and Keystone Foods, who also provided additional funding.
Amazon Rain Forest Protection: Partnering to Save a Precious Commodity
Since 2006, McDonald's has been working with Greenpeace, Conservation International, and other business and non-profit organization leaders in Brazil resulting in the establishment of a moratorium on soybean sourcing to help protect precious areas of the Amazon Rain Forest.
Discover the Rain Forest Happy Meal
In 1991, CI work with McDonald’s to launch the very first Happy Meal with a conservation message that reached millions of customers.
The Rain Forest Imperative
The 1990 educational video outlined important issues facing the rain forests that McDonald’s made available to schools.
For more information on McDonald’s visit www.mcdonalds.com