McDonald's has achieved a new milestone in its mission to boost supply chain sustainability, with all centrally sourced packaging used in its 38 European markets now chain-of-custody certified.

That means all of the wood fibre used to produce paper and board products such as food cartons, cups, bags and napkins is from recycled sources or forests that have been certified to a globally recognised standard of responsible forest management.

The company is now aiming to extend this certification beyond Europe. It has put in place a global sourcing policy designed to ensure that 100 per cent of wood fibre-based packaging is derived from certified or recycled sources by 2020.

Keith Kenny, McDonald's vice president of worldwide supply chain sustainability, said the restaurant group is also seeking to provide "credible evidence" to customers that its packaging products come from well-managed, eco-friendly sources.

Speaking to BusinessGreen, Rolf Huwyler, senior manager of environment and corporate social responsibility at McDonald's, said the biggest challenge of achieving chain-of-custody certification in Europe was handling a large number of different suppliers across many markets.

"We worked very closely with all suppliers, providing support and sharing knowledge to develop best practice," he explained.

"The advice I would give to others would be to ensure you have a strong and clear strategy so all partners involved always know where you are heading. This was one of the most important elements of the journey for us."

McDonald's currently uses approximately 170,000 tonnes of wood fibre for packaging in its 7,900 restaurants across Europe.

Worldwide, it is pursuing a project to source all of its food and packaging sustainably. Wood fibre been identified as a priority raw material by the WWF, along with other key food industry products like beef, coffee, fish and palm oil.