Fast Food Industry

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- Technological Factors

(With the increasing costs of utilities many establishments have taken to install more efficient forms of ambience and equipment in order to cut costs and adopt a greener system to improve sustainability.

- Economic Factors

Depending upon the economic viability which further affects the operational system of an organization they may resort to unethical means when the economy faces its downfall i.e. depression they would resort to methods such as employee layoff, reduced salary as a means to reduce its expenditure.

- Cultural Factors

Most of the fast food industries have chosen to serve ‘halal’ meat with respect to the sentiments of various cultures but it has been done so only selectively depending on the need and requirement (Henley,2014). Large Corporations such McDonalds have also gone a step further by completely refurbishing the menu depending on the cultural requirement of their country such as India by eliminating ‘beef’ which is considered sacred in the Indian culture.

Fast food chains have also been associating themselves with adopting social causes to develop their ethical side and present a well-refined brand image. This directly influences the public standpoint about the ethical views of the brand which further improves the organizational performance.

Section 3:

Building an ethical foundation has been of tertiary importance among most organizations as this incurs heavy expenditure and more focused on long-term goals of a corporation. However even large corporations today still hesitate to implement these into their business models and are put to the test of survival.

Although there are many corporations today who have realized the necessity to implement ethics in the business model and as a result have largely benefitted from it through optimization of resources. Brands today have been using their waste products such as cooking oil to convert them into bio diesel to fuel their delivery trucks in Victoria. Among these are similar initiatives such as implementing the use of eco-friendly machines, processing units, recyclable packaging, inventory optimization etc. A simple change in design on the cups used have enabled a multi-national company such as McDonalds to save up to 40% or 8000 tonnes of waste per year (Mcdonalds,2011).

Fast Food industry being widespread also fosters the growth of other businesses under their umbrella and as a direct result of adopting ethical practices has also forced other business to do the same, this leads to a chain reaction which fosters the use of ethical practices right from its suppliers. Multiple chain reactions like these help the sector to adopt ethical practices as a whole.

More importantly adopting ethics have boosted the values of stakeholders and is slowly becoming a competitive advantage as consumers now prefer ethically oriented organizations over those which ignore them. Corporations are now altering the entire design structure and landscape it was built on by installing locations which are completely eco-friendly, one such example is that of Burger king whose stores were unveiled in Germany which reduces energy consumption by almost 45% and C02 emissions by 1201 metric tonnes every year (Peidra,2010).

In the end enforcing ethics in their business models have definitely resulted in the effective and efficient allocation of resources which as a result have also resulted in the sustainable development of the environment benefitting both the industry image and society in large. Even in terms of profits companies have proven adopting sustainable food sourcing is profitable (Pantsios, 2015).

Conclusion

Adopting ethical practices have become an unavoidable need of organizations as without it a company faces serious threat at the hands of its competitors, Research collected from various articles and business reports have shown companies who have adopted ethical practices in their conduct have a considerable advantage over those who do not.

The study is limited to the extent that many of the concrete details are not disclosed and deductions only prove to be the tip of an iceberg, moreover, ethical challenges & conduct vary widely based on demographic factors.

References

Business, B. (2016). McDonald’s Commits to Buying Sustainable Beef. [Blog] Huffington Post. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/burgerbusiness/mcdonalds-commits-to-buyi_b_4555415.html [Accessed 24 Jul. 2016].

Council, R. (2016). Index of /wp-content/uploads/2011/12. [online] Rapstc.com.au. Available at: http://rapstc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Fast-Food-Environmental-Scan-2015.pdf [Accessed 24 Jul. 2016].

Fernandez, C. (2016). Most meat is tainted by GM: Cattle are routinely given modified feed, shoppers told - and it's even in your Big MacMost-supermarket-meat-tainted-GM-UK-animals-routinely-given-modified-feed-shoppers-told.html#ixzz4FJWL6JLF Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | Daily Mail on Facebook. Daily Mail Australia. [online] Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3461226/Most-supermarket-meat-tainted-GM-UK-animals-routinely-given-modified-feed-shoppers-told.html [Accessed 24 Jul. 2016].

Geer, A. (2016). 10 Ways Fast Food is Destroying the World. [online] One Green Planet. Available at: http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/10-ways-fast-food-is-destroying-the-world/ [Accessed 24 Jul. 2016].

Henley, J. (2014). Which restaurant chains have gone halal – and why?. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/may/07/halal-meat-restaurant-menus-humane-slaughter [Accessed 29 Jul. 2016].

Janet Renee, R. (2016). Statistics of Health Risks From Eating Fast Food | LIVESTRONG.COM. [online] LIVESTRONG.COM. Available at: http://www.livestrong.com/article/383621-statistics-of-health-risks-from-eating-fast-food/ [Accessed 24 Jul. 2016].

Mcdonalds, (2011). [online] Available at: http://(McDonald’s Corporate responsibility and sustainability report, 2011) [Accessed 31 Jul. 2016].

Mohan, V. (2016). Centre bans plastic bags below 50 microns - Times of India. [online] The Times of India. Available at: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/pollution/Centre-bans-plastic-bags-below-50-microns/articleshow/51455974.cms [Accessed 29 Jul. 2016].

Nagle, M. (2015). NY board upholds $15 minimum wage for fast-food workers. [online] America.aljazeera.com.