STRATHAM, N.H. – September 23, 2009. The Timberland Company announced its Q2 2009 CSR performance which is now available on www.timberland.justmeans.com. Highlights from this quarter’s performance are as follows, organized by Timberland Four CSR Pillars: energy, product, workplace, and service.
Q2 2009 Highlights
ENERGY
We achieved 9.5% greenhouse gas emissions reductions at the end of Q2 2009 compared to our end of Q2 2008 results, which is due to reduced energy demand at our retail locations, and increased investment in renewable energy in our distribution facilities.
We have refined our supply chain emissions data collection from factories and will report emissions related to Timberland-only products Q3 2009. Establishing a baseline for Timberland-related emissions will allow us to work more effectively with factories on carbon management.
PRODUCT
We increased the percentage of Timberland footwear production scored with our Green Index environmental rating from 1% of production (the average for the last four seasons) to over 5% of production this quarter. This increase is due to the growth of our Earthkeepers product line which is beginning to feature the Green Index label.
We continue to track and report our consumption of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as a more holistic measure of hazardous chemical consumption. Although our Q2 performance is slightly higher than Q1, this is likely attributed to increased production of boots, which require more adhesive than our spring product line.
Although we continue to prioritize the use of organic cotton, our Q2 performance shows that licensees find it difficult to sell organic cotton products, which is more expensive than conventional cotton that is grown with harmful pesticides. These market forces explain the decline in organic cotton use from 45% at year end 2008 to 26% this quarter. This performance is still well above our commitment as an Organic Exchange founding member to use 10% organic cotton by 2010.
WORKPLACE
We have seen factories that are continued business partners benefit from our assessment, remediation and training, as evidenced by 75% of continued business partners improving their scores, on top of 78% of continued business partners improving their scores in Q1 2009.
We are also seeing positive results from sourcing changes: 18 out of 44 (41%) of factories that were dropped were High Priority, and over half of the new 25 suppliers assessed this quarter scoring Acceptable or better.
The average assessment score of our tanneries also increased, as four more tanneries scored Silver and one Gold in the cross-brand Leather Working Group assessments performed by the British Leather Company (BLC). To date, 43% of our tanneries having already achieved a Silver or better rating.
SERVICE
Timberland employees served 51,082 hours year-to-date, which is 13% more than hours served year-to-date in Q2 2008. The increase in hours served is primarily due to Global Stewards driving service in their regions more deliberately by increasing accessibility, improving communication, and designing projects that are more applicable to local employee populations.
Regional highlights of increased hours and Hours Utilization Rate include a 313% increase in hours served by Retail employees in the United Kingdom on Earth Day and other service throughout the quarter, as well as employees at our Ontario, California Distribution Center serving nearly 1,000 more hours year-to-date than last year.
Our strong Q2 performance is a result of improved employee engagement in service on Earth Day, with 54% of Timberland employees participating this year compared with 48% participating in 2008.
To see our detailed disclosure, click on the reports at www.timberland.justmeans.com. Here, you’ll find quarterly comparisons to annual data and forward looking targets, description of our metrics and data collection processes, and analysis of this quarter’s results. For more information, contact csrinfo@timberland.com.
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