McDonald's goes green - but not all customers are lovin' it

McDonald's is a company on a mission. Tired of being held up as an example of corporate evil and greed, the fast food chain has been hitting out at critics with a series of environmental and social initiatives designed to prove that it cares.
Not content with that, the company is also going through a full makeover, redesigning some of its restaurants in a way that it hopes will revitalise the sites and attract more customers.

On Monday, the group announced its latest initiative: to turn its spent cooking oil into biodiesel fuel to power its vans in the UK.
This is the latest in a series of environmental and health moves. Recently, for example, the group swapped over to non-hydrogenated cooking oil in its restaurants.



The menus have changed to varying degrees over the past few years, with the introduction of sustainably grown coffee, organic milk and toasted deli sandwiches.

In the UK, a sheet of paper on customers' trays shows a photo of George Horton, a 43-year-old farmer in Wiltshire and a McDonald's supplier, who produces the food they eat. Even Greenpeace, which has worked with McDonald's on making sure the soya they source from Brazil is produced by companies that do not destroy the rainforest, says the company has been progressive. Pat Venditti, forest campaigner at the charity, says: "What we've seen is that they have taken a very good leadership role in terms of how they approach environmental issues."



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