Reading festival accused of ‘hypocrisy’ for giving away free McDonald’s chicken while demanding climate change action

Exclusive: ‘When more experts are encouraging people to adopt a plant-based diet to fight climate change, you are going in the opposite direction’

Organisers of the Reading festival have been accused of hypocrisy for giving away free McDonald’s food while demanding climate change action.

The fast food giant is sending a van to various summer festivals to give away chicken McNuggets.

It has already been to three festivals, but Reading looks set to be the most controversial so far.

Reading, which was last year crowned best festival in the Creative Green Awards, boasts of its green credentials on its website.

“Climate change requires urgent action," it states. "We can no longer ignore the damaging effects we’re contributing to our planet!”

Organisers list a host of actions intended to cut pollution and damaging greenhouse gases produced by the event including using environmentally friendly LED lighting.

Single-use plastic cutlery and non-compostable cutlery are banned, public transport and car-sharing are encouraged, and £1 from each parking pass will be donated to renewable energy charity.

Extinction Rebellion has been invited to the festival and ticket-holders are asked to bring refillable bottles.

But activists from the Humane League say this is double standards, since giving away meat undermines efforts to tackle climate change, and sends the wrong message in view of advice from the United Nations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the UK's Committee on Climate Change for the world to cut meat and dairy consumption to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

The festival website highlights how, at 2C of warming, “virtually all coral reefs will be lost, sea levels will rise, affecting low-level coastal regions, and huge numbers of animals and plants will become extinct, we will exhaust our natural resources and will need 1.7 Earths to keep up with our current demand of consumption.”

It adds: “However, instead of worrying about the future, we can start making it better if we work together!”

The Humane League also says it has repeatedly asked McDonald’s to sign up to the “Better Chicken Commitment” (BCC), but the firm has not done so.

It says McDonald’s is following other changes on chicken welfare, but the organisation believes they fall short of BCC standards, insisting birds will still suffer strained organs and broken bones.

The group says some McDonald’s suppliers still use a breed manipulated to grow so unnaturally rapidly that their limbs cannot take their weight and they may die of heart attacks.

A letter from the Humane League to festival organisers asks them to not renew ties with the food giant until it has promised to use slower growing breeds.

“At a time when more and more experts are encouraging people to adopt a plant-based diet to fight climate change, you are going in the opposite direction, encouraging excessive consumption of meat,” it says.

Last month KFC pledged that by 2026 it will meet the “better chicken commitment”, which sets out welfare standards including more space and enrichment for birds, and bans breeds engineered to grow abnormally fast and large.

Activists say boxes of chicken have been left dumped on the ground at festivals, which they say is a waste of life and Earth’s resources.

A McDonald’s spokesperson said: “In October 2017, we announced eight commitments to measurably improve chicken health and welfare outcomes across our global supply chain by 2024. These commitments include setting and driving to progressive targets for key welfare measures and incorporating on-farm welfare enrichments such as lighting and housing environment standards that promote natural behaviour.”

Last year the company formed an independent chicken sustainability advisory council, the statement added.

“We are using our scale for good to meaningfully impact issues that are important for people, animals and the environment.”

Organisers of the festival, which began on Thursday and is expected to attract 90,000 people a day, did not respond to requests to comment.