So in my latest quest to research MBA schools I've discovered the unique industry of socially responsible businesses. In further investigating and looking into exactly what businesses are ranked and fall under the granola crunchers category I stumbled across Timberland’s new nutrition label. Timberland is currently ranked #6 according to Business-Ethics (http://www.business-ethics.com/whats_new/100best.html ). Timberland announced in January that they would be launching a new packaging initiative to help provide consumers with more insight into their socially conscience practice. Sure this seems like a great idea. Even kind of clever. But the nutrition label lacks real information. They only really give 3 pieces of information – where the shoe was manufactured, how it was produced, and the effect on the environment. The problem lies in that we do not get the whole story. Under the heading Community Impact they note how many hours of community service were rendered, but how what do these hours have to do with the people that made the shoe? It has to do with the employees of Timberland and their volunteering efforts. And what about the energy needed to produce the shoe. 2kWh? Is that a lot or a little? How does that compare to other shoe manufacturing? But what about the materials needed to produce the shoe, and the ingredients required to produce the tanning of leather? Aren’t these environmentally harmful? There is nothing noted about this. The label is a nice idea, but that’s all it really is - nice. I’m sure Timberland does great things, but marketing social responsibility and practices needs to be done with a clear intention and full, accurate information. Please don’t use the “we save the environment” as your slogan unless you can own up.
Timberland’s nutrition label leaves me hungry for more.
No comments:
Post a Comment