Peter Girard on Timberland’s leadership in environmental sustainability (Part 2)
Leaders In Sustainability is an exclusive series of interviews with those at the fore of the sustainability movement, both in the corporate and non-profit sectors.
By Chris Advansun and Kassandra Linklater
Part two - Peter Girard shares how Timberland is leading the way in environmental sustainability, one step at a time.
CA - In the case of working with Timberland, what does it involve with partnerships? Do you work along side non-profits and civil society organizations to accomplish your goals?
PG - We have some partnerships directly with non-profits. A lot of our partnerships that we developed with non-profits are based on their areas of expertise, whether it is in climate change or supply chains and product life cycle. We develop internal programs to try and improve on our environmental goals in a variety of areas and then we will bring in NGO’s and academics as stakeholders to review our programs.
Timberland also takes the approach that we are a transparent company first. One of the ways we’re transparent is our environmental impact. We have become pretty comfortable with bringing NGO’s in and having them comment and criticize our programs to push us to go further. Our CEO actually does quarterly calls with stakeholders to discuss our code of conduct, environmental initiatives, and all sorts of things.
Also, some of the places that we are having a large impact are with our partnerships with other brands and manufactures. When you look at dealing with a complex supply chain, a lot of brands are buying and manufacturing with contractors and they are using a lot of the same ones. In order to get information out of your supply chain, there has got to be those partnerships both with the contractors as well as with other brands. We have done a lot of work with the Outdoor Industry Association and working with other brands to discuss, “what are the things we need to ask our supply chain? Can we start to standardize these environmental questions so that one, we get consistent information out of our supply chain about what the environmental impact of our designs are and then two, start to use that information to make better design choices for our products?” I believe interestingly enough, some of our partnerships with other brands, through industry working groups, are actually some of the most productive right now.
CA - You mentioned Jeffery Schwartz, the CEO of Timberland. Where does the inspiration for driving these efforts to be sustainable come from? Is he just responding to the values of customers or is it really from the executive suite down that this influence and passion comes from?
PG – I believe they feed off each other. It’s clearly Jeff’s passion. He is very much leading the company to strive to be a better business and a business that does right by society. He really lives by the motto of “justice in commerce” and also to serve as an example for other businesses. I think part of having that passion in the executive suite, and it’s shared by all the top level people, is that it brings in employees who are also very passionate about those ideas. So, the question of how a company’s culture gets created, I believe the two things feed off each other. Our executives layout a clear vision for where they want the company to go, but all of these very engaged employees help to create the ideas about how to make a lot of these things happen.
And I think a big part of that is that it’s okay for any employee to have an idea that isn’t tangent to their specific role in the company. For example, you work in finance, but you want to help out with the community garden in the front lawn of the headquarters – that is encouraged. Employees are empowered to take on projects and they are supported in doing different things. So for a company that is doing as many things related to the environment as we are, there are roughly only two people whose job description are task specific with environmental projects, but the amount of people who take it on, either formally or informally as part of their job, is enormous.
CA - How many employees are there in the company?
PG - If you include all of our sales associates world wide, it’s about five thousand.
CA - I am curious if there are any initiatives or projects, that you think customers might not know of, that would be relative to the issue of sustainability?
PG - I think when you look at a lot of our product initiatives; we look at going beyond. Although, I am not sure that the depth and effort necessarily shows up to the consumer. For us to go through and look at the carbon foot print of our products is very important and it is starting to show on the labels. But the fact that we do that across a lot of product categories and that our designers are looking at carbon footprint relative to how they design products doesn’t always translate. There is a lot of complexity there and that is very hard to communicate to consumers and I am not sure it will get less complicated to communicate in the near future. It’s certainly something that we are pouring a lot of effort and research into especially regarding designing for environmental products, carbon foot printing in the supply chain, and looking for lower impact materials and production processes.
CA - Tell me what motivates you in all of this?
PG - I have been working on environmental issues for quiet a while; my entire career has been related to the environment. It started when I was in the six grade and as a class we had a little project to preserve the local marsh, and I thought, “That’s pretty cool.”
I have always been an outdoors person, as far as liking to be outside and being in the natural environment. It is very easy to see how people become passionate about the conservation of natural places but I think for me, conservation was one thing but it also ties to equity. It is one thing to preserve parks, that people who have enough money can go and see, but it is another thing to give people bare access to things like clear air, clear water, and make that really a right for people. When you look at it, people need shoes, and that provides a lot of good, but industry also has a downside. I have always been interested in reducing that downside, and not only in a conservation sense but in a “how do we give things to people that they really want,” like having footwear that’s comfortable to walk in or good healthcare and services, without giving up all of these natural resources and places that we find beautiful.
So, the short answer; it started in the sixth grade.
CA - Thanks so much Peter. I am sure our readers will have a whole new perspective on Timberland.
PG – My pleasure.
Image credits (from top): 1) Timberland's Premium Boot; 2)Timberland CEO - Jeffery Schwartz; 3) Timberland Logo
Posted by on 07/25 at 05:47 PM