Protecting Forests

According to the UN, forests cover one third of the earth’s land mass, performing vital functions and supporting the livelihoods of 1.6 billion people,1, and play a vital role in safeguarding the climate by naturally capturing and storing carbon.2

As a company with global operations and a complex supply chain, we acknowledge that we have an important role to play in not only eliminating deforestation within our industry and promoting sustainable forest management practices in commodity sourcing around the world, but in protecting biodiversity and protecting human rights.

1https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/forests/why-do-forests-matter
2 https://www.worldwildlife.org/habitats/forest-habitat

Our Targets

At Restaurant Brands International (RBI), our goal is to eliminate deforestation from our global supply chain by 2030 or sooner.

We’ve been engaging with expert third parties, industry roundtables and suppliers on developing a deforestation policy that will support us in achieving our commitment to forests. The policy will outline requirements for both direct and indirect suppliers regarding:

  1. Compliance (e.g. maintaining accountability via assurance programs)
  2. Land use management and governance
  3. Workers’ rights

Our Strategy

At a minimum, RBI expects and requires that suppliers comply with all applicable federal, state, provincial, and local laws regarding land use, agriculture, development, and fair labour practices.

Our efforts are focused on priority commodities that are sourced in large volumes for our brands, either directly or indirectly, and where we can potentially leverage our scale for greatest impact: palm oil, fibre-based packaging, soy in poultry feed, beef and coffee.

Each commodity is different and requires a tailored approach. As such, we’re working to outline the specific requirements per priority commodity in our deforestation policy, and have summarized key elements of each commodity-specific strategy to date below.

  1. For palm oil, paper fiber, soy (poultry feed), and coffee (Burger King and Popeyes), RBI will ensure deforestation free supply chains using globally recognized certification schemes.
  2. For beef and coffee (Tim Hortons), RBI is working with its suppliers on in house verification schemes to ensure a deforestation free supply chain.

Palm Oil

At RBI, we prioritize the responsible sourcing of palm oil due to the inherent deforestation risk associated with its production.

We are actively working with our approved suppliers to source palm oil that does not contribute to deforestation3 nor agricultural development on peatlands.

Goal – That palm oil directly sourced and used as an ingredient at greater than 1% in our approved branded food products be supplied through a Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certified supply chain, like Mass Balance, Segregated Supply or Identity Preserved, supporting the production of sustainable palm oil in countries where and when it is commercially available (excluding third party branded products, as well as cooking oil used in and food products sold in Turkey).

Progress – As of end of 2022, 91% of palm oil volumes within the scope of our Palm Oil Sourcing Policy was RSPO certified Mass Balance or better, up from 87% in 2021, with the remaining 9% of volumes being covered by Book and Claim credits.


Compliance with RBI Palm Oil Commitment (as of December 2022)4

Region Compliance
North America 99%
Europe, Middle East, Africa 99%
Latin America and Caribbean 90%
Asia Pacific 78%

For volumes that are not Mass Balanced or better, we have purchased Book and Claim credits to support the development of a deforestation free supply chain.

3Deforestation defined by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization - https://www.fao.org/forestry/18222-045c26b711a976bb9d0d17386ee8f0e37.pdf

4Does not include Firehouse Subs

Fibre-Based Packaging

Goal – We’re working with suppliers to increase the use of fibre from certified or recycled sources5 within guest-facing fibre-based packaging in Burger King, Tim Hortons, Popeyes, and Firehouse Subs restaurants. We consider certifications from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, Forest Stewardship Council, or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification as acceptable ways to ensure that the fibre-based packaging we use in our restaurants is sourced from certified sustainably managed forests.

Progress – As of the end of 2022, 93% of our fibre-based packaging came from recycled or certified sources, up from 75% at the end of 2021.


Compliance with RBI RBI Fibre-Based Packaging Commitment (as of December 2022)6

Region Compliance
North America 99.6%
Europe, Middle East, Africa 85%
Latin America and Caribbean 96%
Asia Pacific 55%

5Certified sources defined as sources certified by at least one of the following certification bodies: Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) or Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI)

6Does not include Firehouse Subs

Soy in Poultry Feed

Our brands procure relatively small amounts of soy used directly as ingredients in our food products, however, we are a large buyer of poultry – which is typically fed soy.

Knowing the origin of inputs to our products and being able to trace this through the supply chain is fundamental when it comes to validating that these inputs were not sourced from deforested areas. A key ingredient in animal feed, we recognize soy has high deforestation risk when sourced from certain regions.

Given the complexity of global soy supply chains, we view any poultry sourced from outside North America (where soy used in poultry feed is locally produced) as high-deforestation risk.

In 2019, we joined the Roundtable on Responsible Soy to better understand the latest efforts within the industry on traceability of soy as animal feed and to support the development of the traceability of soy industry-wide.

In 2022, we continued to engage our suppliers and industry stakeholders to understand our global soy footprint. With this information, we plan to work with approved suppliers who share our goal of eliminating deforestation in our supply chains and advancing solutions that can serve the industry.

Beef

As one of the world’s major beef purchasers, we recognize the unique opportunity that exists across our brands to positively impact the beef supply chain.

Currently, all approved raw material suppliers of beef sourced from Brazil maintain active policies on illegal deforestation in the Amazon Biome. Many of such approved suppliers have also shared independent verification of their deforestation free credentials at our request.

Additionally, we are a member of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB) and endorse its definition and core principles of sustainable beef as a:

“Socially responsible, environmentally sound and economically viable product that prioritizes Planet (relevant principles: Natural Resources, Efficiency and Innovation, People and the Community); People (relevant principles: People and the Community and Food); Animals (relevant principle: Animal Health and Welfare); and Progress (relevant principles: Natural Resources, People and the Community, Animal Health and Welfare, Food, Efficiency and Innovation).”

Learn more about beef sustainability and our responsible sourcing approach here.

Coffee

Coffee is core to the Tim Hortons brand. While the process from coffee bean to coffee cup can be complex, Tim Hortons is committed to responsibly sourcing its coffee while also supporting the people, places and partners across the coffee supply chain. We are proud to partner with Enveritas, who verifies 100% of Tim Hortons’ coffee purchases each year under a set of Social, Economic and Environmental standards that measure farm-level sustainability and guarantee no deforestation.

Supplier Engagement

Restaurant Brands International is proud to be a founding member of the CDP Supply Chain – Forests program, started in 2017. Through this program, we are working toward an industry movement to benchmark the management of priority commodities, by asking approved vendors to disclose information on these commodities and how they are managing risks related to deforestation.

Since 2018, we have expanded our engagement efforts by reaching out to a broader group of suppliers, representing about 80% of our global spend in our priority commodities. Through this action, we are taking a meaningful step toward increasing transparency in our own supply chain and the broader business community, as well as allowing us the opportunity to build and better manage a more resilient supply chain.

We will continue to work collaboratively within our supply chain, through global roundtables and with other organizations to identify opportunities and solutions to move closer towards our goal of eliminating deforestation from our supply chain.