CSR in a Restaurant

Running head: CSR IN A RESTAURANT
CSR in a Restaurant
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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CSR IN A RESTAURANT
Introduction:
The term corporate social responsibility is a business approach which business organisations
pursue to ensure welfare of the environment besides earning profits. Tai and Chuang (2014) in their work
define corporate social responsibility as the responsibility which demands the commercial organisations
to operate as responsible citizens and not only mere profit making tools. They highlight that corporate
social responsibility encompasses benefiting stakeholders of the business organisation in order to ensure
long term sustainability of the corporate organisations. Visser (2010) in his work titled ‘The age of
responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the new DNA of business’ mentions the concept of CSR 2.0 which stands
on the concept of CSR 1.0 which business organisations undertook largely to achieve their own goals like
supporting start-up firms only the acquire the later at a future stage. The fifteenth page of the work
mentions that CSR 2.0 stands on ‘common partnerships’ and ‘stakeholder involvement’. The model
advocates transparent CSR reporting and governance by multiple stakeholder panels. The model further
goes on to mentions that CSR 2.0 requires business corporations to empower their subsidiaries to take
CSR initiatives. It can be pointed out that while the CSR reporting and stakeholder governance applies to
all the business organisations, the shift from central CSR to decentralised CSR is more applicable for
multinational corporations. The five principles of CSR 2.0 are creativity, scalability, responsiveness,
glocality and circularity. Tim Hortons is a Canada based international chain of coffee restaurants owned
by the Restaurant Brand International (Rbi.com, 2018). The paper would explore the concept of
CSR 2.0 and its application at the Tim Hortons including the five principles CSR 2.0.
Analysis:
The Time Hortons is a Canadian chain of restaurant which started its journey in 1960s founded
by Tim Horton, a hockey legend and opened the first store in Hamilton, a port in Ontraio, Canada. The
firm then a sole proprietorship firm, partnered with its first franchisee, Roy Joyce. The restaurant
introduced but sized snacks food format in 1976 and in 1977 Tim Hortons opened its first outlet in
Quebec, Canada. The Canadian restaurant chain offered muffins and cookies in 1981 and croissants in

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CSR IN A RESTAURANT
1983. The restaurant entered the United States in 1984, thus graduating into a multinational firm. Tims
added soaps to the product line in 1985 and in 1986, the restaurant offered a promotional tactic called
‘Roll Up the Rim’ which turned out to successful. The restaurant by 1990s had emerged into a famous
Canadian restaurant chain and opened its 500th restaurant outlet in Quebec. The chain marked the opening
of its 1000th outlet in Ontario, Canada. Tom Hortons in 1995. The restaurant chain in the same year
merged with Wendy’s International which enabled the brand to get a stronger foothold in the United
States of America. The restaurant chain expanded further to touch 2000 outlets bench in 2000 and carried
out its first initial public offering, thus marking the transformation of the chain into a public limited
company. The public limited restaurant chain offered co-branded Double Visa Card which were
redeemable while in 2014 the restaurant introduced online mobile payment facility. Burger King and 3G
Capital acquired Tim Hortons to form Restaurant Brand International, the third largest brand in the
restaurant industry. Tim Hortons retains its individual identity status and retains its own official website
(Rbi.com, 2018) (Appendix 1).
An analysis of the timeline of Tim Hortons discussed above since inception shows that the
Canadian restaurant chain has achieved its goals. Firstly, the excerpt shown above shows that the
restaurant chain has achieved a sales of $ 6716.9 million in 2017 which was $ 6405.2 in 2016. This shows
that the restaurant chain has experienced commendable growth in revenue generation (Timhortons.com,
2018).
An analysis of the sustainability report 2017 published by Restaurant Brands International, the
owner of Tim Hortons shows that the organisation is monitoring its utilisation of forest resources in order
to reduce destruction of forests. The company is further aiming to eliminate destruction of forests which
means it has partly succeeded in achieving its sustainability efforts. The analysis of the business growth
of the Tim Hortons shows that the company has succeeded in achieving its sustainability and profit aims
partially. The restaurant chain is collaborating with coffee growing communities to improve their
productivity and returns the small scale coffee farmers get by selling coffee beans. It can be pointed out

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CSR IN A RESTAURANT
out from the discussion that the Tim Hortons has taken up several CSR activities as a part of its core
business strategy. However, the restaurant chains should take (Kleine, 2014)
The corporate social responsibility initiatives of the Tim Hortons make the Canadian chain
unique in the restaurant industry. This is evident from the analysis of the sustainability initiatives of
the restaurant which encompasses a wide area right from supporting children development efforts to
collaborating with local coffee growers. The Horton Children’s Foundation, the child development CSR
arm of the Tim Hortons hold camps. The aim of these children’s camp is to create awareness among
children about the necessity of conserving the environment. The Horton Children’s Foundation employs
employees in different capacities like wellness, food services and camp management. Jamali and Karam
(2018) mention in this regard that this employment generation functions of CSR activities is a new area of
study and is drawing interests from CSR experts. It can be mentioned in this respect that this initiative of
the Tim Hortons makes it unique within the restaurant industry. This is because this initiative creates
environmental awareness among the children and employment opportunities among the local
population.
The second CSR initiative of the Tim Hortons is the Tim Hortons Coffee Partnership lends
uniqueness to the corporate social responsibility of the Canadian restaurant chain. Farooq, Rupp and
Farooq (2017) mention that corporate organisations are responsible for benefitting the local communities
and grass root level suppliers, the farmers who provides them with raw materials. The partnership of the
Tim Hortons with coffee farming communities in four countries namely, Brazil, Colombuia, Guetamala
and Honduras. This initiative of the restaurant chain educates farmers to adjust their cultivation pattern
with the changing patterns of the market.
An analysis of the two CSR initiatives of the Tim Hortons shows that the first initiative is more
unique compared to the second initiative. This is because the children’s camp initiative is unique to the
restaurant chain. However, the initiative of supporting coffee farmers is practiced by several multinational
companies which makes the initiative less unique. For example, Nestle, the largest food manufacturer