In their 2006 Corporate Responsibility Report there was a round table of senior managers, who answered questions from a well-known corporate responsibility expert, Kellie A. McElhaney. Mr. Jim Skinner,CEO ,has this to say about McDonald’s® role in serving its communities by integrating principles of sustainability into meeting customers needs.

In their 2006 Corporate Responsibility Report there was a round table of senior managers, who answered questions from a well-known corporate responsibility expert, Kellie A. McElhaney. Mr. Jim Skinner, CEO ,has this to say about McDonald’s role in serving its communities by integrating principles of sustainability into meeting customers needs. Answering to the question “Why are we here to talk about Corporate Responsibility?,” Mr. Jim Skinner outlined the overall response of McDonald’s role in the need for Corporate Social Responsibility. Mr. Jim Skinner understands at least four integral elements to Corporate Responsibility at McDonald’s.

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Each is integrally related to the other and acts in conjunction with the other integral parts. First, there is the vision and legacy of Ray Kroc, which McDonald’s now has a need to carry on. While the legacy of Ray Kroc lives on today by its management, that management focuses on giving back to its local communities what the local consumers has given to McDonald’s.

Loyal customers who take their time and money to enjoy McDonald’s products also enjoy the benefit of having McDonald’s caring for their local communities, so that they can thrive and grow. McDonald’s sees itself as a global company made up of local restaurants, closely related to the local communities in which it serves.

In building up the local communities, strengthening the business model of McDonald’s inner management structure, and meeting the challenges to always adapt to the needs of the local communities, creates a competitive edge for McDonald’s growth and an enhancing agent for its local communities.

Lastly, since McDonald’s is a leader in its business sector it senses a need to provide a role model for other members of the same industry and this is the last integral element of its vision for Corporate Social Responsibility. Another key element in Corporate Social Responsibility for McDonald’s is its understanding that a key element in consumers today is weighing corporations on some kind of personal scale of social responsibility, so it is important that McDonald’s bring that model which they grow their business to the public attention. In an Executive round table during their 2006 CSR report Mary Dillon, said that “social responsibility …(is) important for us to understand because it could make a difference in a customer’s choice of whether to visit our restaurants or not.”

McDonald’s Corporate Social Responsibility reporting is part of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) where over a thousand major corporations given a reading of the major issues that show their socially responsible activity to customers and investors. The importance of GRI is that it monitors major principles and practices of sustainability for some ten thousand profit and non-profit organizations. Major elements in sustainability reporting, which forms one part of the GRI guidelines, are development or decay of social, economic or environmental elements within the reachable territory of Socially Responsible Corporations.

If you’d like to know more about Corporate Social Responsibility at McDonald’s and the people who have active officers you can visit their CRS blog.