On 29 November, McDonald’s announced it now sustainably sources 84 per cent of its McCafé coffee for United States restaurants, and 54 per cent of all McCafé coffee worldwide. The company first announced its goal, to sustainably source 100 per cent of its coffee worldwide by 2020, in 2014. McDonald’s says coffee crops are highly vulnerable to rising temperatures, with one study showing that climate change has the potential to cut the world’s coffee-growing area in half by 2050. “We know many people enjoy coffee as part of their daily routine, and, at McDonald’s, we are taking meaningful steps to support farmers protecting it from climate change,” says Townsend Bailey, Director, U.S. Supply Chain Sustainability, McDonald’s. “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.”
To help protect coffee from climate change, McDonald’s has partnered with organisations like Rainforest Alliance, Conservation International, Solidaridad, Committee on Sustainability Assessment, and Fair Trade in support of farmers and their supply chains, communities, and land. McDonald’s says since 2012, it has invested millions of dollars to train roughly 20,000 farmers in sustainable practices ranging from reforestation to water quality so they can continue to steward their land.
In 2016, McDonald’s launched its McCafé Sustainability Improvement Platform (SIP), in partnership with Conservation International. McCafé SIP is a framework guiding the coffee supply chain in sustainable sourcing, as well as an investment in coffee growers and their communities over the long term.
“For people to enjoy coffee in the future, we need to do our part to take care of it now,” says Raina Lang, Director, 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.”
