Greenpeace Report
UK Press Releases
July 24, 2006
When we were first alerted to this issue by Greenpeace, we immediately reached out to our suppliers, other NGOs and other companies to resolve this issue and take action.
McDonald's has a long standing policy not to source beef from the deforested areas in the Amazon, so it was only logical to bring soya sourcing in line with this policy. We are determined to do the right thing together with our suppliers and the Brazilian government, to protect the Amazon from further destruction.
We welcome the commitment by ABIOVE (Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries) and ANEC (National Association of Grain Exporters) to take these first steps towards the protection of the Amazon Biome.
The two-year time frame set for the initiative is, we hope, indicative of the sense of urgency with which the ABIOVE, ANEC and their respective members wish to implement the governance programme and all of its conditions. We expect that should some of the measures take longer than the stated two years to implement, the Moratorium would remain in existence until all commitments have been fulfilled.
Furthermore, we take for granted that this commitment to the Amazon Biome will not be to the detriment of soya sourcing in other protected areas of Brazil.
McDonald's looks forward to seeing the next steps among which the development of a transparent, independent and enforceable monitoring system for the programme. We hope that the organisations involved will do their utmost to work in partnership with NGOs and support the efforts of the Brazilian Government in this area.
We will be working closely with our current suppliers to follow progress on this programme to protect the Amazon Biome.
Karen Van Bergen
Vice President, McDonald's Europe
Flávia Vigio
McDonald's Brasil
Comunicaçäo Corporativa
