McDonald’s joins Responsible Commodities Facility to Support Soy-Producing

McDonald’s Corporation is the latest business to join the Responsible Commodities Facility (RCF), providing funding to support the resilient transformation of Brazil’s soy-producing Cerrado region, as related to embedded soy volumes in feed for chicken procured by the company outside of the United States and Canada.

Soy is considered a priority commodity under McDonald’s Commitment on Forests and Natural Ecosystems and the company completed a global mapping project in 2024 with its chicken suppliers to better understand the origins and possible ecosystem risks of soy used in chicken feed. Since 2015, the inception of McDonald’s Commitment, McDonald’s has continued to strengthen its efforts to further ecosystem and business resilience in relevant sourcing sheds, including by investing in landscape-level solutions and initiatives.

“Chicken is one of the most important items across our menu globally, which means we must be vigilant of how we’re sourcing chicken and its embedded soy for feed,” said Beth Hart, Chief Sustainability & Social Impact Officer at McDonald’s. “Investments in landscape-level solutions and initiatives and cross-sector collaboration are key in unlocking greater landscape resilience and business resilience, helping to ensure we can serve millions of customers around the world the quality menu items they love for years to come. We’re excited to expand our investment in landscape-level solutions and support farmers through RCF.”

The Responsible Commodities Facility offers low-interest credit lines for soy farms who contractually commit to deforestation and conversion-free production. This delivers a protection mechanism, financed by public and private sectors, for forests and native vegetation to be maintained on soy farms, contributing positively to climate, water and biodiversity goals.

In the 2025-2026 crop cycle the RCF programme provided finance to 280 farms, which are expected to produce more than 240,000 tonnes of deforestation and conversion-free soy. This resulted in the conservation of around 90,000 hectares of native vegetation – around 29,000 hectares more than required by Brazilian law – while protecting carbon stocks equal to over 22 million metric tons of CO2.

Investors in the RCF for the 2025-26 soy growing season include UK supermarket chains Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, alongside Rabobank, AGRI3 Fund, IDB Invest and the Mobilising Finance for Forests (MFF) program. MFF is managed by FMO, the Dutch development bank, and is funded by the UK Government and the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. New companies will join the RCF from 2026-2027, including MacDonalds, bringing the fund to an estimated U$ 100 million, leading to a significant increase in its environmental impacts.

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Eligibility Criteria for Cerrado Programme 1

The following eligibility criteria are required for participation in the Responsible Commodities Facility for Cerrado Programme 1 (see full description here):

Land use

The area of cultivation must not have had any deforestation and conversion of native vegetation since 1 Jan 2020*. Preference will be given to areas converted from abandoned pasture land to soy cultivation after 2008.

Forest Code Compliance

Farm land must be registered with the Cadastro Ambiental Rural (CAR). The farm must contain and maintain areas of native vegetation equivalent to those required for Legal Reserve and Areas of Permanent Protection (APPs) determined by the Forest code or have formally adhered to a Programme of Environmental Regularization (PRA) established by the state environmental agency**. The farm area must not overlap with public protected areas, indigenous lands and other traditional people and community lands (including ‘quilombolas territories’).

Land title

Farmers must have unquestionable rights to use the land, be it as a land title or land lease agreement.

Legal Compliance

Farmers must demonstrate that they and their farms do not contravene any environmental or legal requirements, such as embargoes, environmental irregularities, contraventions of the labour legislation (including slave and child labour), and internationally-accepted rules for the use of agrochemicals.

*Farmers occasionally request the conversion of small areas of native vegetation to conduct farm improvements (building storage areas, water reservoirs, etc.). Provided that these areas are small and not for the purpose of expansion of the agricultural area, RCF analyses and considers them eligible. In order to do so, RCF uses the concept of Minimal Level (of deforestation or conversion) as defined by the Accountability Framework Initiative Terms and Definitions, which states “To be considered consistent with no-deforestation or no-conversion commitments, minimal levels must generally meet the following conditions: Not exceed cumulative thresholds that are small both in absolute terms (e.g., no more than a few hectares) and relative to the area in question (e.g., no more than a small proportion of the site).”

**The RCF analyses Forest Code compliance by looking at single farms (defined as the area covered by a CAR) or bundles of individual CARs that, in combination, result in the desired area of native vegetation put under the protective status of the RCF.  This bundling should not be understood as a means of compliance with the Forest Code requirements and is not intended to release the farmer of the regularization process committed under the Forest Code rules (enrolment in the CAR, engagement in a PRA, etc.). In order to differentiate its metrics from those of the Forest Code, the RCF refers to areas of Excess Native Vegetation (ENV) as opposed to Excess Legal Reserve, to avoid confusion with areas legally categorised under the Forest Code.