Mcdonald's Business Ethics

Part 1:

In the mid 1980’s, London Greenpeace, a small activist group with ties too many campaigns on many social and environment issues, decided to focus their attention on McDonald’s and use them as an example of a corporate giant that represents the bad side of business. During this time they protested McDonald’s practices and handed out pamphlets displaying unethical acts which attacked numerous aspects of the corporate structure. There are five principal ethical issues presented through their protest which include environment issues, nutrition issues, recycling and waste issues, employment issues, and animal issues.

Ethical Issue #1: Environment Issues

London Greenpeace argues that McDonald’s is a present factor whose business is a leading contributor for harming the environment. A critical argument they make is that manufacturing practices McDonald’s partakes in is not only harming the environment but they also promote these detrimental factors. Issues such as the destruction of rainforests, producing millions of tons of packaging, global warming factors, destruction of the ozone, depletion of natural resources, and the effects their cattle ranching has on the environment are all key issues of protests and rallies.

Ethical Issue #2: Nutrition Issues

Activists argue that products McDonald’s provides are a direct cause of many serious diseases humans face today such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Essentially they categorize McDonald’s as a promoter of premature deaths which are a result of misinformed advertisement of their products as notorious. They feel that opening up restaurants in hospitals, sporting events, or other venues where health is a characteristic is a misleading message they are sending to consumers that their products are healthy. Another health issue they raise is that they are a leading cause to the decrease in fresh foods in an everyday diet and replacing them with processed foods. They are changing the eating habits...