Day 293 - 04 Nov 96 - Page 41
1 Scandinavia.
2
3 Another example is in document number 41 in the same
4 bundle. I do not know whether this was an advert or what,
5 but it appeared in Readers Digest, and it is like a page
6 just about McDonald's. And it is called "Taking
7 initiatives in city streets and around the world". It says
8 in there: "With 340 restaurants in Britain serving an
9 average 750,000 meals daily, McDonald's is the leader both
10 in the marketplace and in taking action to protect the
11 environment."
12
13 Lower down on that page, there is a subheading "Sense of
14 Responsibility", and it says: "Customers at McDonald's this
15 year have been picking up McFact sheets (printed of course
16 on recycled paper) giving the facts about the company's
17 role worldwide and caring for the environment."
18
19 That was, I think, produced -- well, it must have been
20 after 1987. I am not sure when it was produced, actually.
21
22 The document in tab 4, 42, "McDonald's and the
23 Environment", this is from the McDonald's Corporation in
24 1991, and towards the bottom of that there is a section
25 "Recycling", and the first sentence is: "McDonald's is one
26 of the nation's largest users of recycled paper products."
27 The other one is in tab 44 in the same bundle.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
30
31 MS. STEEL: The third page of that document is, did you know
32 number 5, McFact card, and it is entitled "recycling the
33 facts". The fourth -- well, I mean, it is all about
34 recycling, but the fourth paragraph says: McDonald's is
35 already the largest user of recycled paper in the quick
36 service restaurant industry. And it gives some examples of
37 that. It talks about the pilot scheme in Nottingham. So
38 anyway, they were just examples of McDonald's trying to
39 create an impression that, you know -- well, just about
40 their use of recycled paper.
41
42 But I think, as a general point on top of that, is I was
43 certainly conscious of statements to the media and things
44 like that about their use of recycled paper, which, you
45 know, obviously we have not got all the press cuttings in
46 the bundles, but it was just a general impression that was
47 created by the company. That is about it.
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Thank you.
50
51 MR. MORRIS: There was an admission under advertising about the
52 - I will not read it all out - but it was the Advertising
53 Standards Authority in April 1991, upheld a complaint
54 against a McDonald's advertisement in All Sporting Magazine
55 (?) headlined Go Green McDonald's and the Environment. And
56 then the Authority found the advertisement had wrongly
57 implied that if McDonald's had ended their practice of
58 using foam packaging, a paper based alternative would not
59 be fully recyclable. Then they found it was misleading for
60 McDonald's to refer to the recycleability of their
