Timberland in Conversation with Marlboro MBA students

 

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tbl is keeping a very low level of wages, in order to manipulate people, nowadays retail crisis, good chance to do that, even with a extraordinary results, its kind impossible to succeed, Mr. J Swartz didn-t do nothing, about this complicated situation.They are not incentive anymore, only some crumbs, that offend our personalities.Tbl got together a bunch of crooks, dual face like the Jackets, hostile and very unprepared, kind of WallMart in US.God bless us!

 

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Hi Beth,



Thank you so much for visiting Marlboro College's MBA program. Your presentations conveyed very much that CSR and sustainability initiatives are a process, take time and are often only partially completed. It made me appreciate that once a company decides to genuinely come to the table and the table is being turned, as the founder of BSR described CSR conversions, that's good enough.



Certainly going into the future it will be hard to discern good green washing marketing practices and genuine CSR initiatives, now that sustainability has become a trend. How does a company like TBL craft its reporting language to reflect process as well as goals so as not to mislead its stakeholders?



I was reading in an article about Starbucks encounter with the activist non-profit Global Exchange on its fair trade practices, that often is is the companies that have made the most efforts at CSR that get the most criticism. I was wondering what your comments on that might be.



Do you see a danger that the transparency of very public stakeholder engagements like Just Means can overshadow the on-the-ground nuts and bolts progress of CSR accomplishments, raising cynicism that this kind of transparency is a sideshow? How does TBL work to prevent that perception?



I did my real world stakeholder take-away project on a fictitious scenario that TBL decides to begin tackling the other 86% of its carbon footprint outside of its facilities by starting a line of non-leather shoes and buying up existing vegan shoe companies so as to put a dent in the GHGs from the leather by-products of the livestock industry which contributes a whopping 18% of all GHGs, more than the entire world transportation industry. For the novel in-house TBL business plan I drafted, I cited the statistics of the livestock industry and the emerging "ethical consumer" market that is tied to the now $2.8 billion vegan industry as indicators and a potential market. Your mention that TBL's Earthkeepers shoe outsold TBL's iconic yellow boot buoyed my enthusiasm. But I couldn't find statistics about what percentage of the livestock industry produces leather and what percentage of the leather industry is devoted to shoes and then, what share of the shoe industry does Timberland share? Would you be able to point me in the direction of (free) online marketing tools whereI could access or approximate those statistics?



Again, it was really insightful to hear your experience at TBL. Many thanks again.



Jonathan

 

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We will be disclosing our year end and 4th quarter results (including our progress against renewable energy targets) at the end of March. Please check back then!



Our next steps will be to continue discussions with our utilities and also consider bulking our energy procurement to increase the opportunities to use as much renewable energy as possible in our facilities. The facilities where we are procuring renewable energy include our distribution centers in Ontario and California; Enschede, Holland; our Dominican Republic factory; and the majority of our retail and showroom locations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

 

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Beth,



I am looking forward to further engagement tomorrow. In the Marlboro MBA stakeholder dialogue role-play I represented BP Solar. My question is in regards to information on the fourth page of the Timberland Q3 2008 Energy Data report. Toward the bottom of the page this statement appears "Unfortunately, a delay in procuring renewable energy for select Timberland facilities (primarily driven by budget constraints) will likely prevent us from meeting our 2008 target." Can you comment about whether you did indeed miss your 2008 target? Do you still anticipate meeting your 2010 goal? What steps are you taking to continue to increase the percentage of energy that is sourced from clean renewable energy? Will you disclose where the select Timberland facilities were located?



Thanks for this opportunity

Beth

 

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Beth,

In your first point you state "our industry-leading 50% reduction". That response seems to have a slight marketing bend to it. To be honest, I find that many areas of Timberland's reporting seem to have this feel. I wonder if you could discuss the challenges of sustainability reporting with solid data and a high level of transparency while telling a good story yet avoiding stepping over the line into the realm of marketing. It seems like this must be an occupational hazard for the CSR Professional.



Thanks for your response. I look forward to talking with you more about these issues on Friday at Marlboro.

 

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Beth - Thank you for your thorough response > much appreciated!!

 

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Great question Chris - that has a tricky answer. Because CSR reporting is voluntary in the U.S., it's difficult to integrate financial and non-financial reporting entirely. While Timberland is committed to treating CSR performance in the same manner in which we treat other disclosure, the SEC dictates the regulations under which financial performance is disclosed in the U.S. However, there are some countries that are now requiring CSR reporting - see this recent article from Ethical Performance in which I have commented on the circumstances here in the U.S. and the use of the GRI Guidelines as a global standard. http://bit.ly/2yRlLD

 

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Thanks for your questions, John. Here are some answers:



1. Timberland's carbon neutral goal is focused on our Scope 1 emissions - that is, our owned and operated facilities' energy use (as well as employee travel, which is actually Scope 3 under the WRI/ WBCSD Greenhouse Gas Protocol). In order to achieve carbon neutrality by 2010, we aim to 1) reduce our emissions as much as possible; 2) invest in energy efficiency and renewables; and 3) purchase offsets. Because purchasing offsets is not our primary strategy for achieving carbon neutrality (that is, we plan to purchase offsets for energy use we cannot reduce ourselves), our carbon neutral goal is accompanied by an aggressive absolute emissions reduction goal - which is where our industry-leading 50% reduction over a 2006 baseline comes in.



2. Regarding 3rd party verification, we have indeed continued to explore this opportunity between the release of our 2006 CSR report and our next cycle of CSR reporting. While we now release our key performance indicators on a quarterly basis, we have also committed to a bi-annual CSR report to provide space for more context and storytelling around those (and other) metrics. Our next report will cover 2007 and 2008 performance data and will be released in July 2009. We have not yet found the right solution to third party reporting, as it is very costly. We do, however, continue to recognize its importance. In the potential absence of 3rd party verification, we have improved (and disclosed) our internal data collection and validation processes.

 

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Following a thread in your answer to my 2nd question. You aspire to report CSR as you report financial results, is there any movement toward a single reporting framework that captures the triple bottom Line? It seems like this could be a positive direction, that would put CSR reporting on the same level of importance as financial reporting.

 

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Beth,

I am looking forward to meeting you at the upcoming intensive. I have a couple of questions that perhaps you could address before then:



1. In your comment to Scott below you state "Setting aggressive GHG emission reduction targets such as targeting a 50% reduction by 2010 over our 2006 baseline, and disclosing our GHG Inventory and progress towards such goals in our quarterly and annual CSR reporting." This seems to be a departure from what you have presented to our class in the PP presentation and in published reports where it is clearly stated that Timberland's goal is for carbon neutrality by 2010. I am wondering if you could comment about this. Has there been a change in direction regarding carbon neutrality for Timberland?



2. During our research and role-play one topic that came up was Timberland's statement in the 2006 CSR Report that Timberland desired to have third party data verification. I believe Timberland stated that the goal was 2008 for TPV. I have not been able to find any indication that Timberland has followed through on that. Has TPV been conducted at Timberland?



Thanks for participating in our course. Timberland has provided an interesting case to be dissected and evaluated for this class. I look forward to further discussions with you!



John