McDonald's Socially Responsible? Give Us a Break!

Paul Hawken writes that McDonald's recent 'Report on Corporate Social Responsibility' is "a low- water mark for the concept of sustainability and the promise of corporate social responsibility. ... This is ... a report about how a corporation that's been severely stung by bad publicity, poor service and declining earnings now wants to plead its case to its critics. ... The McDonald's Social Responsibility Report presupposes that we can continue to have a global chain of restaurants that serves fried, sugary junk food produced by an agricultural system of monocultures, monopolies, standardization and destruction, and at the same time find a path to sustainability."