The most relevant challenges of cattle raising in Brazil is to avoid deforestation and increase efficiency and productivity – essentially producing more with the same amount of land while still respecting environmental ethical and human aspects.
McDonald’s is a member of the Cerrado Manifesto Statement of Support group, which represents an international coalition of over 100 companies and investors working together to eliminate deforestation in cattle and soy supply chains in Brazil’s Cerrado Biome. This group is especially important because it leverages the collective action of many major companies who source from this area and therefore have significant capability to work together and send a market signal to end deforestation and vegetation loss in the region.
In Brazil’s Cerrado Biome, McDonald’s is using geographic information system (GIS) technology to map the farms in our supply chain, in partnership with our Latin American Franchisee Arcos Dorados and specialists Agrotools and Proforest. Together the group has developed a deforestation-free purchasing protocol based on the definitions developed by the Collaboration on Forests and Agriculture.
Arcos Dorados, McDonald’s Franchisee in Latin America, has also engaged with a Sustainable Beef Project in Alta Floresta State called the Novo Campo Project, supported by the GTPS (local Roundtable for Sustainable Livestock), local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and industry partners. This program is designed to address many of the unique challenges to a sustainable beef supply in this region, while meeting the global principles and criteria established by the GRSB.
Specifically, the project aims to:
- Meet our commitment to zero deforestation.
- Verify that production does not occur within Conservancy Units and Indian areas.
- Ensure that conditions resembling slavery or child labor do not occur.
- Meet the GTPS Guide principles, criteria and indicators.
- Achieve third-party verification audits.
This project does not represent an end to the Company and Arcos Dorados’s long-standing commitment to not source beef from within the Amazon Biome, which was established in 1989. Our commitment to protecting the rainforests remains steadfast. At the same time, given innovations in sustainable sourcing and related partnerships with credible NGOs and our suppliers, we are leveraging this pilot to evaluate whether it is possible – and even productive – to source beef from the Amazon. The results of the pilot will help inform our policy and related strategies moving forward, but our commitment to preventing deforestation and supporting sustainability initiatives that reclaim degraded lands will remain fundamental to our approach.
Farms under this project are currently being verified, and we met our goal of starting to source beef raw material from this program during the Rio Olympics in 2016. As part of our broader beef sustainability journey, the Company and Arcos Dorados will continue to scale sustainable beef production throughout the country, not just in the Amazon, focusing on continuous improvement.