Those golden arches of McDonald\u2019s, among the most recognized logos in the word, are actually a\u00a0catenary arch, a super strong architectural feature that has helped ensure resilience buildings for centuries. So, does the ubiquitous yellow pair that graces roughly 37,000 McDonald\u2019s worldwide represent a company resilient to current and future changes?<\/p>\n
At last week\u2019s Global Climate Action Summit, I sat down with Keith Kenny, McDonald\u2019s Global Vice President of Sustainability to learn about the company\u2019s resilience story. He asserted\u00a0that climate resilience is both an environmental and economic imperative for the company.<\/p>\n
\u201cFarmer livelihoods and related thriving rural communities are important to us because our restaurants are in those communities,\u201d he explained. \u201cThat gets forgotten when we speak about sustainable agriculture. \u00a0Farmers need to be able to reinvest in their business. Just as we invest in them.\u201d<\/p>\n
That belief proved to be McDonald\u2019s inspiration for its Flagship Farmers Program, which connects farmers interested in continuous improvement and sustainable practices. Its platform notes that climate change is affecting agriculture, causing droughts, floods, more storms and heat waves. The program encourages farmers \u201cto adapt and develop our farming systems to be more resilient to these changing environmental conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Publicly recognizing these hazards caused by changes in climate \u2013 and predicted to grow over time \u2013 offers a good start on the path to making climate resilience a key feature of the business.<\/p>\n
Keith pointed out that McDonald\u2019s invests in supply chain projects with a 20-30 year payback, which makes them both climate change sensitive and focused on resilience to ensure year-over-year payback. Unlike other retailers with tens of thousands of items on their shelves, \u201c15-to-20 items represent 70 percent of what we sell,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have long-term relationships with our suppliers. Most of them have grown their business as we have grown ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is key, for instance, for beef consistency \u2013 patty to patty \u2013 throughout the world and also for long oblong potato varietals conducive to harvest times, storage and its fries.<\/p>\n
This is a significant improvement from McDonald\u2019s supply chain response of about five years ago. Then, under different leadership, its response to a question of what McDonald\u2019s was doing to adapt its supply chain to climate change was to exclaim, \u201cWe\u2019ll just tell Canada to get ready to grow canola if it gets to hot and dry to grow it in the lower 48.\u201d<\/p>\n
Its fresh approach may bring McDonald\u2019s more into the climate-resilient supply chain vanguard with such companies as Mars Inc. and Coca Cola that have collaborated with the nonprofit Business for Social Responsibility to launch a Climate-Resilient Value Chains Leaders Platform\u00a0announced at last week\u2019s Summit.<\/p>\n
Though McDonald\u2019s has yet to officially join that initiative, it is among a group of food companies including\u00a0Keurig Green Mountain, Heinz and Chipotle making initial strides on climate resilience. And, like other big companies, climate action to reduce greenhouse gasses is becoming more of a priority. This year, McDonald\u2019s\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0it was partnering with franchisees and suppliers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to its restaurants and offices by 36 percent by 2030 from a 2015 base year in a new strategy to address climate change. It also committed to a 31 percent decrease in emissions intensity per metric ton of food and packaging across its supply chain by 2030 from 2015 levels, and the combined target has been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative.<\/p>\n Keith said innovation is key to McDonald\u2019s resilience and sees soil health as a \u201chuge opportunity\u201d that the company is exploring with such partners as the World Wildlife Fund and the University of Arizona. In addition, he enumerated the many collateral benefits of pursuing adaptive multi-paddock grazing \u2013 moving cow herds from paddock to paddock \u2013 that allows soil to regenerate by giving native plants a chance to establish deeper roots. This enhances carbon sequestration and water retention and filtration while increasing productivity with more animals grazed on the same land.<\/p>\n Keith also offered another example of how its thinking about climate change and resilience has changed, and it reflects that McDonald\u2019s is a surf-and-turf restaurant. Cod fished from the North Atlantic were a key element of McDonald\u2019s filet-o-fish sandwich until environmental organization Greenpeace brought McDonald\u2019s and others to task for fishing in a warming ocean where melting ice flows are exposing previously frozen areas. Keith was invited by Greenpeace to journey on its Arctic Sunrise ship to see firsthand \u201cwhat the fish are up to\u201d in a climate-changed world.<\/p>\n In May 2016, McDonald\u2019s and more than a dozen other seafood industry giants joined forces to protect a large area of the Arctic from increased fishing. The voluntary agreement commits the companies from expanding cod fishing into a previously ice-covered portion of the Northern Barents Sea in the Arctic.<\/p>\n