Corporate Social Responsibility of McDonald's: A Detailed Analysis

This report examines the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices of McDonald's, a multinational fast-food corporation. It begins with an overview of McDonald's CSR initiatives, including their 2020 goals for sustainable sourcing, responsible packaging, and environmental responsibility. The report details various CSR activities such as assisting local communities through the Ronald McDonald House Charities, employee training programs, adherence to labor and human rights standards, promotion of employee health and safety, commitment to gender equality, and environmental initiatives like energy and water conservation, recycling, and responsible sourcing. The report then provides a historical overview of McDonald's, its company structure, and its policies, including its commitment to ethical operations and compliance with the law. The report also highlights the company's focus on sustainability, balancing menu choices, and working with stakeholders. The report concludes by emphasizing McDonald's transformation of the global food marketplace and leading towards sustainability as a long-term vision.

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Contents
CSR practices of McDonald..................................................................................................................2
History, company structure, policies of McDonald...............................................................................3
References.............................................................................................................................................5

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CSR practices of McDonald
McDonald has articulated the 2020 ambitious goals which illuminate the processes
sustainable obtaining of the foods and packing, offering sensible ranges to the customers,
emerging and functioning ecologically competent restaurants and assisting native societies to
be originated by the organization. The Good Business Report is released by McDonald yearly
comprising the particulars of the CSR programs and the initiative was taken. The company
undertakes the CSR activities such as assisting local publics, enlightening and authorizing
employees, labor and human privileges, worker health and safety, gender equivalence and
sectors, environment, accountable sourcing, and some other ingenuity (CSR news, 2014). The
company has assisted the local communities by enhancing the lives of the children and their
people through the Ronald McDonald House Charities (RHMC) and concerned
establishments. This initiate has addressed the requirement of children like education and
corporeal activity. Another CSR activity enlightening and authorizing employees has been
undertaken by offering training to the employees and managers of the franchisees. The
company accepted in a survey conducted in 2014 that almost 83% of the managers of the
restaurants in the top markets accepted that it is an amazing place to work (Research
methodology, 2016). According to the McDonald’s Hamburger University, seven campuses
around the world are included and offer training to the company’s managers, employees, and
franchisees. The initiative of labor and human rights of McDonald required suppliers to
follow supplier code of conduct. It helps in illuminating the need of the organization’s issues
concerning to human moralities, ecological management, organization environment, and
corporate reliability (Gorham, Gibson & Irlbeck, 2016). The employee health and safety is
promoted by McDonald through the work health and safety strategy at all the intensities of
the organization. Gender equality and minorities have been given importance by the
organization in the CSR activities by maintaining 27% of the places for the vice president and
the above stages are detained by women. Over 1/4th of the directors of McDonald are women
in the restaurants possessed by the company (Research methodology, 2016).
The CSR practices concerning the environment are undertaken by McDonald. The
energy consumption has been focused by the company through the close collaborations with
the World Wildlife Fund, Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), global reporting
initiative and GreenBiz group. McDonald and its franchisee purchased 132,186 energy-
efficient equipment in 2014. It helped in saving 142 Gigawatt hours and USD 14.2 million in

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terms of energy expenses. The company also took efforts for the water consumption by
making 50% increases in the energy competence of the possessed restaurants of McDonald. It
has been included in the 2020 aspirational goals of the company. Out of this, 20% energy
efficiency has been attained. McDonald also focuses on recycling and Co2 emissions as a
CSR initiative. The outlets of McDonald are using LED lights since 2010 and have been
successful in reducing 7% energy usage annually. The company has aimed to enhance
amount of recycling to 50% in the restaurant along with minimization of wastage (Lee,
Conklin, Bordi & Cranage, 2016). The responsible sourcing efforts of the company are
undertaken by doing collaborations with global forest and trade network, GTPS, roundtable
on the defensible palm oil, justifiable agriculture initiative platform, and United States
roundtable for the sustainable beef. The company even increased its serving in 2014 in
restaurants by 30% as compared to 2012. Over 95% of the global roundtable for the
defensible beef membership nominated for admiring final ideologies and standards for
sustainable beef. 32% of the coffee sources and 100% of the fisheries to be used by the
company has been proved sustainable sources. The other CSR initiatives undertaken by
McDonald include pledge for the accountable marketing for the children in 52 nations.
Ronald McDonald house charities also aided to almost 5.7 million children and their families
in 2014 (Research methodology, 2016).
History, company structure, policies of McDonald
McDonald was established in 1948. McDonald is a multinational fast-food
organization serving to almost 69 million consumers in over 100 nations. The company was
listed in 1965. McDonald is operating two forms of the restaurants, company-owned and
franchised restaurants. 80% of the restaurants belong to the franchisee business. The first
franchise of McDonald was opened in 1955 (CSR news, 2014). The franchisee complies with
the law and practice sound employment activities. The franchises are expected to maintain
high standards of integrity and abide all by the laws and regulations. The company is
employing more than 420,000 individuals. The products such as happy meals, egg mcmuffin,
and chicken McNuggets define the McDonald brand. Due to health concerns such as global
increase in obesity, McDonald added healthy items to its menu. The company is also quite
active in charitable work (Sanyal, 2018).

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The company is committed to conducting its operations ethically and in acquiescence
with the law. The commitment of the company is reflected in its values. The value of the
McDonald is to be truthful, moral and dependable. The policy of the company prohibits
bribery, money laundering and doing business with the illegal or terrorist group. McDonald
has different kind of policies like audit and non-audit services plan, director selection
procedure, corporate authority policies, director stock ownership plans, directors and officers’
strategy linked to dodging and plighting of stock, retention policy and more (Astuti, &
Rodhiyah, 2017).
The new framework of the company concerning CSR emphases on the zones which
are signficant to the business and make a significant difference. The company is breaching
new ground with the collective efforts in order to source beef. McDonald's is regularly
working with several shareholders to advance practical solutions and increasing recycles in
restaurants. The company is even constant to meet need of the customers by balancing menu
choices and comprising more fruits and vegetables (Kim, Kim, Marshall & Afzali, 2018).
McDonald is transforming the global food marketplace and leading towards sustainability as
a long term vision. The sustainability is an advanced step taken for addressing issues which
are major to the organization and its value chain (Ghazali, et al. 2019).

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References
Astuti, L. I., & Rodhiyah, R. (2017). The Influence of Corporate Social Responsibility and
Corporate Image against a Loyalty customers (Case study on fast-food restaurant
McDonald's Indonesia Semarang). Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi Bisnis, 6(4), 206-213.
CSR news, 2014. McDonalds announces 2020 Corporate Social Responsibility and
Sustainability Plans. Retrieved September 20, 2019 from
https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/36995-McDonald-s-Announces-2020-
Corporate-Social-Responsibility-and-Sustainability-Plans?
tracking_user=[e-mail]
Ghazali, E. M., Mutum, D. S., Sundramohana, M., & Valdivieso, P. (2019). Was the Boycott
of McDonald’s Malaysia Religiously Motivated?. In Management of Shari’ah
Compliant Businesses (pp. 155-161). Springer, Cham.
Gorham, L. M., Gibson, C., & Irlbeck, E. (2016). Making a Case for McDonald’s: A
Qualitative Case Study Examining the McDonald’s “Our Food Your Questions”
Campaign. Journal of Applied Communications, 100(4), 3.
Kim, C., Kim, J., Marshall, R., & Afzali, H. (2018). Stakeholder influence, institutional
duality, and CSR involvement of MNC subsidiaries. Journal of Business
Research, 91, 40-47.
Lee, K., Conklin, M., Bordi, P., & Cranage, D. (2016). Restaurants’ healthy eating initiatives
for children increase parents’ perceptions of CSR, empowerment, and visit
intentions. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 59, 60-71.
Research methodology, 2016. Overview of McDonalds CSR. Retrieved September 20, 2019
from https://research-methodology.net/overview-of-mcdonalds-csr/
Sanyal, S. C. (2018). Employee engagement in managing environmental performance: A case
study of the Planet Champion initiative, McDonalds UK and Sweden.
In Contemporary Developments in Green Human Resource Management
Research (pp. 59-76). Routledge.