Oct. 14, 2009 (Business Wire) -- The Timberland Company (NYSE: TBL), a leading outdoor footwear and apparel company, today announced the release of its 2007- 2008 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report. This bi-annual report is a more comprehensive compliment to the company’s quarterly reporting efforts, and is designed to create a two-way dialogue for collecting feedback on its CSR initiatives. The report not only highlights Timberland’s accomplishments and forward-looking goals in its four CSR pillars of energy, product, workplaces, and service, but also invites readers to share feedback and ideas for improvement through an online tool called Voices of Challenge.
“A key goal of our CSR program is to engage our consumers, employees, shareholders and other stakeholders in an on-going dialogue to help us continuously improve our performance. Knowing that few people want to digest 100-page CSR reports, we took a different approach, making the information available in a number of different formats,” states Beth Holzman, Manager of CSR Strategy & Reporting at Timberland. “We’re hoping to provide all stakeholders, the right amount of information in accessible formats to openly communicate our commitment to environmental and social justice.”
Voices of Challenge, also hosted on www.earthkeeper.com/csr, is a dynamic online forum to engage thought leaders, practitioners, NGOs, investors, students and consumers on specific CSR challenges facing the business community. Thought leaders kicking off the online dialogue include Bill McKibben of www.350.org, Joel Makower of Green Biz, Dominque Conseil of Aveda, Li Qiang of China Labor Watch, and Mayor Bloomberg of New York City. Through Voices of Challenge, Timberland hopes to spark a global conversation with all people who care about these issues that will lead to collaborative problem-solving.
Other highlights of the report include the following progress against each of its Four CSR Pillars:
- Energy: Timberland reduced its absolute carbon emissions from owned and operated facilities and employee air travel by 27% over its 2006 baseline, exceeding its goal of 25%. Timberland also became one of the first in the industry to begin measuring and disclosing supply chain emissions for energy use at third-party contract factories.
- Product: Timberland scored 1% of its total footwear products using the Green Index® environmental rating system, its program for designing environmental harms out of its products and informing consumers about its products’ environmental impacts to spur more sustainable purchasing. Timberland’s goal is to score all its footwear by the end of 2011.
- Workplaces: Timberland significantly reduced the percentage of footwear made in high risk factories from 34% in 2007 to 1% in 2008.
