Much to our surprise, fast food giant Yum! Brands just released their first ever Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report. Unfortunately, they are still buying their paper packaging from Southern forests, and other endangered forests around the world.

Yum! Brands is huge. When it comes to their paper packaging decisions they are contributing to large scale clearcutting and conversion of natural forests to sterile pine plantations which has disastrous impacts on the biodiversity of Southern forests and communities.

Send a message to Yum! Brands CEO David Novak here.

• Yum! Brands (parent company of KFC, Long John Silvers, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and A&W) is a major contributor to forest destruction in the Southern US and around the world.
• Last week, the company published its first ever Corporate Social Responsibility report which fails to address how the company plans to reverse the impact its paper packaging choices have on biodiversity, water quality and climate.
• Yum! Brands is a major customer of , a company responsible for the widespread destruction of forests and wetlands in the Southern US and around the world.
• While countless other companies like Staples, Office Depot, Random House, Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Starbucks and others have developed sustainable paper purchasing policies and taken action to help protect forests, to date, Yum! Brands lags seriously behind.
• Yum! Brands has done nothing to address its paper packaging purchasing which has a major impact on Southern forests including large-scale clearcutting, loss of endangered forests, and the conversion of natural forests to industrial scale pine plantations.
• When it comes to paper packaging choices, Yum! Brands has no clear plans for increasing its use of purchases of post consumer recycled paper or ensuring that its paper is certified by FSC standards –the only independent global certification system in the world accepted by the conservation, aboriginal and business communities.
• Yum! Brands can show leadership in the fast food sector by adopting a sustainable paper purchasing policy committing to:
  • Increase and maximizing the use of PCR content.
  • End sourcing from endangered forests
  • End sourcing from forests converted to plantations…
  • Increase packaging efficiency and reduction
  • Source paper from sustainably managed forests like those certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)

Take action click here.

Taking these steps would not only save forests but also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.