Tim Horton's Sustainability Report, the Major Strengths Essay

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….....