Tim Horton's Sustainability Report, the Major Strengths

Tim Horton's Sustainability Report, the major strengths are that it defines the company's internal structure for implementing CSR, and that it is highly detailed. The first component is important, because it puts the CSR initiatives in the context of the company's overall strategy. The report outlines the management structure of the company and the oversight structure as well. The report discusses the company's history and mission. It is important that CSR initiatives be evaluated in the context of these factors.

Corporate social responsibility initiatives are more likely to be implemented effectively if they are aligned with the company's general mission and strategy. A good example of this would be Wal-Mart, which is already focused on efficiency as a cost-saving measure, making it easy to focus on reduced waste as an environmental initiative. Tim Horton's being a low cost provider, faces a similar issue.

The company's mission in this case is only somewhat aligned with the environmental aspects of the business -- fast food inherently generates a lot of waste and the company has only begun recently to examine ways of dealing with that. Another strength of the Tim Horton's CSR report is that is a highly detailed. These types of reports are only as useful as the information they contain, and in this case the information is quite detailed.

Tim Horton's understands that CSR is about meeting the needs of a wide range of stakeholders, and explains its understanding of the stakeholder environment in which it operates. It then outlines its performance on several initiatives, from nutrition to waste to employee benefits. The information provided is rich and well-structured. For each major category the company outlines the stakeholders, the objectives and how it intends to meet these objectives. One weakness of the report is that it is focused largely on what Tim Horton's does well.

The company dedicates multiple pages to long-standing initiatives like its summer camps for children and some of its coffee sourcing successes, but there is less information on areas where perhaps the company is weak. The report comes off as glowing, which is a somewhat distorted picture of Tim Horton's actual performance according to some (admittedly unreliable) blog posts (No author, 2010). Another weakness, less in the report but in the objectives themselves, is that many are short-term. The report for 2010 seemed mostly focused on initiatives that range on or two years.

There is not as much information as would be appropriate regarding long-term initiatives or long-term strategy. A good CSR strategy is going to be much like any other good business strategy, and focused on both short- and long-term tactics. The company should have a vision of its responsible self that goes out for the long run, so that management has guiding principles to which it can adhere. Lastly, there is little in the report to explain the controls that the company has in place.

As an example, the company has a plan to reduce water waste but it does not say how this will be enforced at the individual store level. If the company is relying on voluntary buy-in from individual managers, it should say that. If the company has incentives to induce changes in the tactics, it should say that. Ideally, the company would explain how it intends to achieve its objectives, and what costs there are, if any, for non-compliance among its managerial team.

The report does a good job of outlining the different stakeholders and many initiatives are related directly to these stakeholders (employees, coffee suppliers, environment). From an organization perspective this makes for easy analysis. It is clear from the report that the company has only recently undertaken many initiatives, and as a result it is more walking down a sustainability path than have actually achieved its goals. That it is relatively easy to make this assessment is something that is positive in this report.

Tim Horton's has a long way to go in terms of its CSR initiatives, but at least we know that and we can track the progress of the company in coming CSR reports. To improve this report, the company should outline more long-term objectives, and should outline the controls that it has to ensure that its goals are being met. In addition, the subsequent reports should be clear about how the company has progressed.

The report notes that the company is committed to continuous improvement and future reports should note whether the company is improving its CSR or not -- and at what rate. Ideally future reports will have much the same content, as consistency will help stakeholders to understand the company's progress. As with financial statements, CSR reports derive transparency from consistency. In general, the report makes it clear that Tim Horton's management feels good about its progress in its CSR initiatives.

The outside observer might argue that the company's efforts thus far have been minimal. Making an evaluation in this regard is difficult. On one hand, the company has clearly only just started to focus on many of these initiatives, and taken great pains to highlight in the report the things it has been doing for years so that it looks more progressive than it really is. Based on current progress, the company is clearly behind the curve.

However, every company needs to start its CSR initiatives somewhere, and the report that Tim Horton's has produced indicates that it has a well-thought out CSR program. It has tied its strategies in with its understanding of the stakeholder environment, and its organization structure in general. It has implemented teams on issues like animal welfare.

It is clear that even though the company is just starting down the path to CSR, they are organized, have a clear sense of purpose and have taken the issues seriously enough to build out the organizational infrastructure needed to make the.