Premium Essay

Mcdonald's: the Greening of the Golden Arches

In:

Submitted By ID80JE11
Words 650
Pages 3
Dr. Maronick MKTG 640

McDonald’s: The Greening of the Golden Arches
In 1990, the Environmental Defense Fund and McDonald’s jointly decided to phase out the use of plastic products and revert back to using paper products. However, while this may have satisfied the consumers who supported this initiative, it overlooked the many benefits of plastic recycling programs. As the Director of Environmental Affairs, Peter Oehl was faced with satisfying what his consumers and board of directors desired, versus pursuing the opportunity to start a much more eco-friendly recycling system which he believed would yield far greater future benefits. One of the key facts presented in the case study was that there are many benefits to using plastic, as long as it is done correctly. Early on, McDonald’s launched an advertising campaign showing just how advantageous the use of plastic was. First, they showed evidence of the many materials plastic can be recycled into. Then, they cited that even if they used the proposed was paper, the wax on the paper would still need to be separated in order to decompose properly. Additionally, they pointed out that if paper products in landfills aren’t exposed to air, water, and micro-organisms, they would not breakdown and biodegrade as planned. Next, they also exposed the fact that paper mills consumed far more energy and product more waste than plastic manufacturing plants did at that time. Furthermore, they went on to spread education on the superiority in sanitation levels that disposable plastic products had over reusable plates, cups, and utensils. Lastly, McDonald’s specified that their plastic products were safer and less expensive to incinerate, as they did not produce the same harmful bi-products that paper products would. Another primary point was that in 1988, Peter Oehl was facing a political uphill battle by switching

Similar Documents

Free Essay

Mcd Edf Abridged 08

...[pic] McDonald's and the Environmental Defense Fund: a case study of a green alliance Sharon Livesey Originally published in…The Journal of Business Communication • January 1999 In 1987, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, which had convened to address the global ecological crisis, produced Our Common Future (the Brundtland Report). This watershed event established the conceptual underpinnings for environmental politics and debate in the 1990s by reframing the problem of the natural environment as one of sustainable development. In the wake of this reframing, a new practice in environmental management emerged - that of green alliances or partnerships between business and ecology groups (Westley & Vredenburg, 1991, pp. 71-72). These alliances, considered one of the ten most significant trends in environmental management and the greening of industry (Gladwin, 1993, p. 46), appeared to signal a sea change in the way business, as well as environmentalists, could respond to the ecological impacts of firms' economic activities. Indeed, environmental partnerships offered both business and ecology groups the potential for a new rhetorical stance. Business communication scholarship has identified a variety of rhetorical strategies adopted by corporations in the face of environmental controversy: defensiveness and apologia (e.g., Ice, 1991; Tyler, 1992), competing information campaigns (e.g., Lange, 1993; Moore, 1993), or retreat (e.g., Seiter...

Words: 11234 - Pages: 45

Premium Essay

Green Marketing

...Peer Reviewed Title: An Introduction To Green Marketing Journal Issue: Electronic Green Journal, 1(2) Author: Polonsky, Michael Jay, University of Newcastle Publication Date: 1994 Publication Info: Electronic Green Journal, UCLA Library, UC Los Angeles Permalink: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/49n325b7 Abstract: The scope and importance of the relationship between business and the environment, and a survey of the pitfalls and abuses. eScholarship provides open access, scholarly publishing services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic research platform to scholars worldwide. Polonsky: An Introduction To Green Marketing An Introduction To Green Marketing Michael Jay Polonsky Department of Management, University of Newcastle, Newcastle NSW 2308, Australia. TEL: 61(49)216-911. Fax:61(49)216-911. INTRODUCTION Although environmental issues influence all human activities, few academic disciplines have integrated green issues into their literature. This is especially true of marketing. As society becomes more concerned with the natural environment, businesses have begun to modify their behavior in an attempt to address society's "new" concerns. Some businesses have been quick to accept concepts like environmental management systems and waste minimization, and have integrated environmental issues into all organizational activities. Some evidence of this is the development of journals such as "Business Strategy and the Environment"...

Words: 4256 - Pages: 18

Free Essay

Living History

...___________________________ LIVING HISTORY Hillary Rodham Clinton Simon & Schuster New York • London • Toronto • Sydney • Singapore To my parents, my husband, my daughter and all the good souls around the world whose inspiration, prayers, support and love blessed my heart and sustained me in the years of living history. AUTHOR’S NOTE In 1959, I wrote my autobiography for an assignment in sixth grade. In twenty-nine pages, most half-filled with earnest scrawl, I described my parents, brothers, pets, house, hobbies, school, sports and plans for the future. Forty-two years later, I began writing another memoir, this one about the eight years I spent in the White House living history with Bill Clinton. I quickly realized that I couldn’t explain my life as First Lady without going back to the beginning―how I became the woman I was that first day I walked into the White House on January 20, 1993, to take on a new role and experiences that would test and transform me in unexpected ways. By the time I crossed the threshold of the White House, I had been shaped by my family upbringing, education, religious faith and all that I had learned before―as the daughter of a staunch conservative father and a more liberal mother, a student activist, an advocate for children, a lawyer, Bill’s wife and Chelsea’s mom. For each chapter, there were more ideas I wanted to discuss than space allowed; more people to include than could be named; more places visited than could be described...

Words: 217937 - Pages: 872