Marketing Decoded

McDonald’s recently released it’s progress on its 13 sustainability goals.  Unfortunately, the company only met one of its goals to make sustainability part of its everyday business operations.  The company did manage to increase energy awareness and education across all of its stores.  The company was also successful in its fish sourcing practices in 2011, sourcing 99% of its fish from  Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified fisheries.   McDonalds  has many goals to make sustainability more mainstream in its everyday business operations and, despite not accomplishing all thirteen this year, has done not badly in terms of advancing their menu, something that we could consider from both a social and environmental sustainability perspective: Happy Meals now have fruit iincluded Happy Meals and French Fries are smaller.

Is it enough?  McDonald’s claims that these actions are aligned with the company’s focus on leveraging its brand recognition  as a food company to influence sustainable change.  Hmmm.  Altering the makeup of a Happy Meal will likely force the competition to follow suit, maybe in the fruit department.  And using responsibly sourced fish may drive change in the  industry…but this is a market where consumers are not willing to pay very much for their burger and margins are thin.  The competition will be pushed to respond from a combination of consumer pressure and corporate social responsiblity.  Is McDonald’s really doing enough here though as a market leader to drive sustainable change in the fast food industry?