I can remember that night in late November clearly. Tossing and turning in my bed, unable to keep my eyes shut, much less fall asleep. Was it the heat of the Dominican Republic hotel room? Perhaps the goat meat I ate at lunch?

The simple fact was that I was too excited to sleep. Earlier that day, I had witnessed the power that transparency and accountability can have on a company and the community in which it operates.

For the past two years, I have headed up CSR reporting initiatives at Timberland. As an idealistic capitalist coming out of business school, I was eager to work for a for-profit company in a capacity that would allow me to make a difference. Timberland was the perfect fit for this desire. I can say, without reservation, in my time at Timberland I have received general support for all my attempts to gain greater understanding around our environmental and social impacts. In fact, there have been several occasions where I not only received support from our CEO, but I have been challenged to be more progressive. Timberland truly is an environment that understands the value of transparency.

Back to the Dominican Republic. In early November of 2006, we published a sustainability report for our factory in Santiago, Dominican Republic. The Recreational Footwear Company (RFC) is the only factory that Timberland still owns and is home to approximately 30% of our global workforce. Using a framework piloted by Ceres, the facility-level report detailed baseline performance information on global human rights, environmental stewardship and community involvement.

As a CSR practitioner, I have always believed that the value of reporting lies not in the report itself, but the conversation it stimulates. Following the release of the report, Timberland, in partnership with a Santo Domingo-based non-profit CIPAF, hosted a stakeholder engagement in downtown Santiago. Our intent was to create a forum where community stakeholders could discuss the information presented in the facility sustainability report. Approximately 80 stakeholders attended the event including employees, local and global non-profits, government officials, universities, community-based organizations and other business organizations. The conversation was spirited and far-reaching. In one break-out session, I watched a RFC employee have a frank discussion with the Mayor of a local neighborhood on issues ranging from employee benefits to environmental responsibility. To my delight, the report had created a common platform for these two stakeholders to have a dialogue. I could see the potential for real change.

Exposure to this type of synergistic interaction -- between company, stakeholder and community -- was almost too much for my system to handle. In my hotel room that night, I was experiencing inspiration overload. Eventually, I gave up on sleep, turned on ESPN's Sportcenter to keep me company through the night and started taking notes in my folder. The journey had just begun and I couldn't wait to take the next step.

***
All of Timberland’s CSR reports can be found at www.timberland.com/csrreport.