Earlier this year, McDonald's committed to start buying verified sustainable beef by 2016. At the time, the company didn't have a definition for sustainable beef. Now it appears that the fast-food chain will let suppliers in various regions find ways to source sustainable beef–the idea being that sustainable beef production looks different depending on where a restaurant is located.
In an interview with Bloomberg BNA, Jeffrey Hogue, McDonald's senior director of global corporate social responsibility and sustainability, explained the decision, saying that beef can be grown anywhere, but “the environmental impacts in one place will be a lot different than the environmental impacts in another place.”
Every supplier will, however, have to follow the sustainability principles currently under development with the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, a group made up of organizations including Cargill, McDonald's, the World Wildlife Fund, and Walmart. A draft version of the principles is available here.
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