Podcast special: Can fast food ever be green?

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4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2021

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Can the company that feeds the world beef burgers lead hospitality in reaching net zero? That’s what McDonald’s hopes to do as they lay out their Plan for Change 2021. With 1400 restaurants, over 23,000 British and Irish farmers and four million customers visiting them every day, will it be enough? Or is it just a drop in the ocean? McDonald’s strategy will result in a number of sustainability-oriented improvements in four key areas: Planet, People, Restaurants, and Food. We’ll be taking a look at each one of these, in addition to discussing the challenges the fast-food giant will face. Kate Andrews is joined by a panel of three guests to discuss this and more:

Duncan Baker, Conservative MP for North Norfolk.

Giles Gibbons, founder and CEO, Good Business.

Beth Hart, Vice President Supply Chain and Brand Trust at McDonald’s.

This podcast is sponsored by McDonald’s.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Spectator Radio. I'm Kate Andrews and I'll be your host for today's
0:07.8	discussion on the future of sustainability in the hospitality sector. Fast food giant McDonald's has
0:13.6	released their 2021 sustainability plan for change and their pledged to reach net zero by 2040
0:19.6	comes with a host of questions.
0:21.9	Will the costs increase prices of their products?
0:24.7	Can a fast food outlet like McDonald's really be sustainable
0:27.7	when they sell some of the highest volumes of beef burgers around the world?
0:31.7	Are plant-based options the answer?
0:34.0	And while their customers agree?
0:35.9	To discuss all this and more, I'm joined by Beth Hart,
0:38.7	the Vice President of Supply Chain and Brand Trust at McDonald's, Duncan Baker, MP for North Norfolk,
0:45.2	and a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, and Giles Gibbons, a sustainability consultant
0:50.3	who is the founder and CEO of Good Business. This podcast is kindly sponsored by McDonald's.
0:56.6	So Giles, Beth and Duncan, thanks for joining me. It's great to have you all on the podcast.
1:01.2	Giles, I'm going to start with you. Can you give us a brief overview of the ways in which it's
1:05.5	challenging for the fast food industry to be green? From one-time packaging to supply chains, presumably going green as a challenge.
1:14.2	Absolutely. I mean, the greatest challenge is their size, in a sense. And that's really the size of the
1:21.5	challenge and the size of the organisation to create the needed change in order to reach net zero is a huge task and not
1:31.0	one to be underestimated. So Beth, as trials, says there are no easy task. So tell us about
1:37.1	McDonald's latest plan for sustainability. We're really excited to launch our plan for change
1:43.4	this week, believe it or not.
1:45.0	And it is a very lofty aspiration.
	...

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