Melbourne, Australia \u2014 Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists dressed as koalas have climbed an iconic McDonald\u2019s store in Melbourne, kicking off a campaign highlighting the fast food giant\u2019s failure to eliminate deforestation from its supply chain.<\/p>\n\n
A banner reading \u2018Take Deforestation off the Menu\u2019 was dropped under the golden arches in Melbourne\u2019s inner-city suburb of Clifton Hill highlighting the role of McDonald\u2019s, reportedly one of Australia\u2019s biggest beef purchasers<\/a>, in driving deforestation and nature destruction. Independent research commissioned by Greenpeace Australia Pacific reported that 668,665 hectares of threatened koala habitat was bulldozed for beef production<\/a> in the last five years alone \u2014 2,400 times the size of Sydney CBD. <\/p>\n\n \u201cRight now the beef industry in Australia is killing native wildlife and the big beef purchasers are corporations like McDonald\u2019s, whose customers would be shocked to learn their Big Mac is fuelling the deforestation crisis and pushing globally-iconic animals like the koala to the brink of extinction,\u201d said Gemma Plesman, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific.<\/p>\n\n \u201cOur Deforestation Scorecard<\/a> assessed 10 of Australia\u2019s biggest beef purchasers, including McDonald\u2019s, against their commitment towards being deforestation-free by 2025 and every single one failed. <\/p>\n\n \u201cGiven deforestation has been a persistent issue in Australian beef supply chains for decades, this seriously calls into question the environmental performance of companies like McDonald\u2019s who can not say with certainty their products are not linked to forest destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n A senior McDonald’s executive recently confirmed<\/a> the company does not monitor deforestation down to a property level and does not exclude purchasing beef from deforested properties. He also confirmed McDonald\u2019s is using a weak definition of deforestation to monitor forest destruction.<\/p>\n\n \u201cAustralia has one of the worst rates of deforestation in the world, driven primarily by the bulldozing of forests for beef cattle grazing. Australian beef supplies 65% of McDonald\u2019s stores globally<\/a>, meaning that customers around the world could be eating burgers from threatened koala habitat that was bulldozed for beef production. As global markets including the EU move rapidly towards deforestation-free beef, Australia\u2019s big beef purchasers will need to prove there is no deforestation in their supply chains.<\/p>\n\n \u201cIf big corporations like McDonald\u2019s take action to change their practices, we can stop the destruction of our native wildlife and the places they call home \u2014 a vital step towards achieving the government\u2019s election commitment to \u2018no new extinctions\u2019 in Australia,\u201d[1] said Gemma Plesman.<\/p>\n\n Greenpeace Australia Pacific are calling on McDonald\u2019s to publicly aim for, and achieve, conversion and deforestation-free supply chains by 2025, using global best practice definitions<\/a>, which includes protecting important regenerated forest and threatened species habitat.<\/p>\n\n ENDS<\/p>\n\n High res images and interviews of today\u2019s activity can be found in the Greenpeace Media Library<\/a>, and B Roll of the action before 4.30pm AEST<\/p>\n\n For more information, visit: act.gp\/mcdonald’s<\/a><\/p>\n\n Greenpeace Australia Pacific\u2019s 2024 Deforestation Scorecard<\/a> and Full Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n [1] Australia announces plan to halt extinction crisis and save 110 species<\/a><\/p>\n\n Contacts:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Kate O\u2019Callaghan<\/a> on +61 406 231 892 or Kimberley Bernard<\/a> on +61 407 581 404<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists dressed as koalas have climbed an iconic McDonald\u2019s store in Melbourne, kicking off a campaign highlighting the fast food giant\u2019s failure to eliminate deforestation from its supply chain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":67786,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"Forests","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[84],"p4-page-type":[98],"class_list":["post-67779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature","tag-forests","p4-page-type-press-release"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67779"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67794,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67779\/revisions\/67794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67779"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=67779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![Deforestation Scorecard<\/a> assessed 10 of Australia\u2019s biggest beef purchasers, including McDonald\u2019s, against their commitment towards being deforestation-free by 2025 and every single one failed. <\/p>\n\n\u201cGiven deforestation has been a persistent issue in Australian beef supply chains for decades, this seriously calls into question the environmental performance of companies like McDonald\u2019s who can not say with certainty their products are not linked to forest destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n\nA senior McDonald’s executive recently confirmed<\/a> the company does not monitor deforestation down to a property level and does not exclude purchasing beef from deforested properties. He also confirmed McDonald\u2019s is using a weak definition of deforestation to monitor forest destruction.<\/p>\n\n\u201cAustralia has one of the worst rates of deforestation in the world, driven primarily by the bulldozing of forests for beef cattle grazing. Australian beef supplies 65% of McDonald\u2019s stores globally<\/a>, meaning that customers around the world could be eating burgers from threatened koala habitat that was bulldozed for beef production. As global markets including the EU move rapidly towards deforestation-free beef, Australia\u2019s big beef purchasers will need to prove there is no deforestation in their supply chains.<\/p>\n\n\u201cIf big corporations like McDonald\u2019s take action to change their practices, we can stop the destruction of our native wildlife and the places they call home \u2014 a vital step towards achieving the government\u2019s election commitment to \u2018no new extinctions\u2019 in Australia,\u201d[1] said Gemma Plesman.<\/p>\n\nGreenpeace Australia Pacific are calling on McDonald\u2019s to publicly aim for, and achieve, conversion and deforestation-free supply chains by 2025, using global best practice definitions<\/a>, which includes protecting important regenerated forest and threatened species habitat.<\/p>\n\nENDS<\/p>\n\nHigh res images and interviews of today\u2019s activity can be found in the Greenpeace Media Library<\/a>, and B Roll of the action before 4.30pm AEST<\/p>\n\nFor more information, visit: act.gp\/mcdonald’s<\/a><\/p>\n\nGreenpeace Australia Pacific\u2019s 2024 Deforestation Scorecard<\/a> and Full Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n\nNotes:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n[1] Australia announces plan to halt extinction crisis and save 110 species<\/a><\/p>\n\nContacts:<\/strong><\/p>\n\nFor more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Kate O\u2019Callaghan<\/a> on +61 406 231 892 or Kimberley Bernard<\/a> on +61 407 581 404<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists dressed as koalas have climbed an iconic McDonald\u2019s store in Melbourne, kicking off a campaign highlighting the fast food giant\u2019s failure to eliminate deforestation from its supply chain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":67786,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"Forests","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[84],"p4-page-type":[98],"class_list":["post-67779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature","tag-forests","p4-page-type-press-release"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67779"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67794,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67779\/revisions\/67794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67779"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=67779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org.au\/static\/planet4-australiapacific-stateless\/2024\/05\/fe2ac08c-screenshot-2024-05-10-at-4.08.43%E2%80%AFpm.png\"){kind=link}