Timberland reduced its greenhouse gas emissions in the second quarter despite using less renewable energy due to lower energy usage overseas and less corporate travel, according to its Corporate Sustainability Report (CSR) for the second quarter.

The report, which Timberland published Sept. 8, lists developments under four CSR Pillars: Factories, Climate, Product, and Service.
    
More detailed performance data and analysis can be found on the Goals & Progress section of Timberland's CSR website.
 

  • Factories:  Of the 320 active factories at the end of Q2, 36 percent are rated Accepted, which is a 16 percent improvement over our Q1 result (31 percent).  For a complete factory list, visit the factories section of our Responsbility site.  For more about VF's Compliance audit process click here. In 2015, we will be transitioning the measurement of suppliers' environmental and social/labor management to the Sustainable Apparel Coalition's Higg Index, consistent with our parent company, VF Corporation.  To have the greatest impact on VF's supply chain as a whole, the focus will be on the top 250 suppliers across all VF brands.  In the coming quarters, we will be reporting on Timberland's highest producing factories and their scores on the Higg Index. VF's other brands include Eagle Creek, Jansport, Lucy, Reef, Smartwool, The North Face and Van's.
  • Climate:  In 2014, we had a 9 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 2013 (15,874 vs. 17,514), which is a 46 percent reduction over our 2006 baseline.  This decrease can be attributed to lower energy usage in several of our European and Asian sites, and a decrease in emissions related to employee travel. Our use of renewable energy decreased slightly in 2014 (18.7 percent in 2013 vs. 16.7 percent in 2014).  This decrease can be partly attributed to several sites in Europe with expired renewable energy contracts.  We are working to re-establish contracts in those locations that previously had them, and 2 large US locations are new procuring renewable energy.  As such, we look forward to a more favorable result in 2015.
  • Product:  Our global average grams of  volatile organic compounds used in footwear production is 55.4 grams per pair, which is 2.7 grams more per pair than our Q2 2014 result (52.7 grams).  Our use of ROR in apparel was roughly 12.7 percent of total textile weight.  With respect to leather sourcing, 99.6 percent of Timberland's leather volume came from tanneries scoring Silver or Gold in their Leather Working Group (“LWG”) audit. 
  • Service: Timberland employees served 46,509 hours year to date.  YTD Hours Utilization Rate (the percentage of employee service hours used compared to the total available hours according to our Path of ServiceTM program) during Q2 2015 was 18.5 percent, which is even with our Q2 reslut (18.6 percent increased to 7.6 percent vs. 4.4 percent in Q1 2014.  Our Benefit Utilization Rate (the percentage of employees who serve at least one hour) YTD increased from 18.1 percent in Q1 2014 to 34 percent in Q1 2015.