McDonald’s Reaches Sustainability Milestone With Critical Coffee Goal

McDonald’s has announced that it has reached a new sustainability milestone with a critical coffee goal it set for itself.

The iconic fast food chain has revealed that “it now sustainably sources 84 percent of its McCafé coffee for U.S. restaurants, and 54 percent of all McCafé coffee worldwide,” per a press release from the company.

McDonald’s goes on to add that the sustainable efforts are a “part of its efforts to protect coffee from the adverse effects of climate change.”

The company points out that “coffee crop is highly vulnerable to rising temperatures,” with one study revealing that “climate change has the potential to cut the world’s coffee-growing area in half by 2050.”

Earlier this year, McDonald’s “became the first global restaurant company in the world to address global climate change by setting a target approved by independent experts to significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.”

Townsend Bailey, the Director of U.S. Supply Chain Sustainability for McDonald’s commented on the new milestone, saying that the company is happy to have made such a big improvement and that they plan to keep going.

“We know many people enjoy coffee as part of their daily routine, and, at McDonalds, we are taking meaningful steps to support farmers protecting it from climate change,” he stated. “As we continue on our journey to build a better McDonald’s, we are using our size and scale to implement significant changes that are important to our customers, our people and the environment.”

In order to achieve such grandiose goal, McDonald’s has partnered with a number of environmentally conscience groups, including Rainforest Alliance, Conservation International, Solidaridad, COSA, and Fair Trade.

“For people to enjoy coffee in the future, we need to do our part to take care of it now,” said Raina Lang, the Director of Sustainable Coffee Markets at Conservation International. “Through our partnerships with McDonald’s and across the industry with the Sustainable Coffee Challenge, the coffee sector is making strides in protecting and strengthening coffee production around the world.”

McDonald’s plans to “sustainably source 100 percent of its coffee worldwide by 2020,” and it is clearly well on its way to achieving that goal.