ESG Governance, Stakeholder Engagement, Reporting and Materiality

Our Brands

Restaurant Brands International owns and franchises four iconic brands, Tim Hortons®, Burger King®, Popeyes® and Firehouse Subs®. These independently operated brands have been serving their respective guests, franchisees and communities for decades.

Our Approach

We’re committed to the simple principle of doing what’s right. Our Restaurant Brands for Good plan provides a framework for serving our guests the food and drinks they love while improving ingredients, reducing our environmental impact, sourcing responsibly and investing in people and communities (and each is outlined in greater detail in the reports provided below):

• Food – serving high-quality and great-tasting food every day with a focus on food safety, improving choice, nutrition, transparency, and ingredients;
• Planet – continuing to reduce our environmental footprint, with a focus on packaging and recycling, green buildings, and responsible sourcing; and
• People & Communities – supporting communities and enhancing livelihoods, with a focus on talent development, ethics and human rights, and improving supplier livelihoods.

ESG Governance

With over 32,000 restaurants and a global network of franchisees and suppliers, we know it is important to align key stakeholders within and outside of our organization to help drive our sustainability priorities forward. This work begins with an effective governance structure which allows for both top-down guidance as well as bottom-up prioritization and execution from our business units.

Management
To further bolster our governance and risk management practices, management-level responsibility for ESG-related matters is held by our Chief Corporate Officer, who has assumed this responsibility since 2021. Our Chief Corporate Officer reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer and leads our ESG Steering Committee, overseeing the development and execution of the sustainability framework and strategy, as well as ensuring ESG oversight through his respective reporting structures.

Managing sustainability is a division between corporate and brand-led initiatives. A corporate-level team tracks stakeholder expectations and trends, identifies sustainability initiatives to support the business strategy, and highlights best practice across the group. The team maintains regular contact with senior leadership, guiding them on long-term social and environmental trends and the expectations of global stakeholders. They also lead the company’s sustainability reporting, and work with several other business lines to oversee the preparation of sustainability disclosures.

The importance of sustainability at RBI is also reflected in metrics linked to annual employee performance incentives across our business, including incentive plans for RBI’s senior leaders. The metrics used include, but are not limited to, a variety of sustainability projects, such as delivering against sustainable sourcing transition plans, and executing strategic research programs. Leaders with sustainability linked performance incentives include individuals from teams across each brand, supply chain, nutrition, quality assurance, and marketing and communications .

Board of Directors
Our Board possesses a broad range of skills, qualifications, and experience that enable them to provide effective oversight of our business. Our Board members bring unique perspectives from various industries, including public, private, and not-for-profit sectors, and from a mix of cultures and geographies, living across three continents.

Our Board has three standing committees — the Audit Committee, the Compensation Committee, the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee — as well as the Conflicts Committee.

Each of our Board’s committees operates under a written charter and is comprised solely of independent directors under NYSE and TSX listing standards.

The Audit Committee oversees environmental, social and governance topics, including environmental and human capital management/goals, risks, policies and progress, and receiving quarterly updates.

Learn more about our Board →

Materiality

Restaurant Brands for Good  is built on our first materiality assessment, to identify the most important sustainability issues for our business. We update the inputs to this assessment on a regular basis, benchmarking ourselves in relation to our industry peers and competitors, assessing guests’ priorities through consumer research and social media, capturing external stakeholder perspectives through non-governmental organizations' (NGOs) requests and investor inquiries, and cross-referencing these topics against an assessment of business risks in order to gather key insights.

In 2023, we worked with a third party to update our materiality assessment to further identify, assess and prioritize key ESG topics that may have impacts on enterprise value, society and the environment (i.e., double materiality). This updated process includes engagement with both external and internal stakeholders, the results of which are mapped to help inform our priorities.

Learn more about our pillars and impact areas →

Reporting

We are committed to communicating our progress regularly and transparently. Our sustainability reporting is guided by leading standards and frameworks, including the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) , and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD). We also disclose through additional channels, such as CDP. We evaluate and refine our reporting strategy in line with evolving practices. To view our sustainability-related data, reports, and policies, please visit our Policies and Reports page.

Reporting Scope

Unless otherwise specified, information in these webpages pertains to Restaurant Brands International and its subsidiaries for fiscal year 2024 (January to December). References to “restaurants” or “system-wide restaurants” include franchised restaurants and those owned by us. Information in these webpages also excludes all operations in Russia, where the business is fully franchised and does not receive corporate support from RBI. Statements on our Restaurant Brands for Good website are based on information and assumptions available at the time of publication. We have relied on third-party sources, including vendors, for accuracy and completeness. All dollar amounts are in U.S. Dollars, unless otherwise stated.

Reporting Boundaries

Our franchisees and vendors are independent business owners who maintain our brands’ core standards. We collaborate with them to raise awareness of sustainability topics and offer tools and opportunities for improvement. Together, we set objectives, monitor progress, and engage in shared innovation.

Contact Information

For questions regarding Restaurant Brands for Good and our reporting, please contact sustainability@rbi.com.

Stakeholder Engagement

Ongoing stakeholder engagement enables us to identify and understand issues, risks and opportunities that can affect Restaurant Brands International and our brands. It is also essential for us to proactively manage potential business operation impacts with key stakeholders.

This is a continuous process through which the views of individuals and groups are responsibly collected and used as important insights into our decision-making processes. We have a diverse set of stakeholders which requires a variety of engagement methods, and we recognize that these methods must be representative, inclusive, respectful and focused in order to be meaningful. These include, but are not limited to, collaborations, surveys, and in-person events. The feedback we receive is essential in informing us of our material topics and guiding us to maximize our social impact.

Throughout the year, we engage with the following stakeholder groups:

Guests

Our big dream is to build the most loved restaurant brands in the world. We work hard, every day, to serve great food that our guests and our people love. As our main priority, we focus on understanding our guests’ needs through extensive guest research, including how they feel on topics related to sustainability.

Restaurant Owners

Whether during our advisory board meetings or at our annual convention, restaurant owners are brought together to discuss business plans and share priorities. We believe in making sure all restaurant owners feel prepared to uphold the brand experience for our guests. Through engagement surveys, we verify our efforts and utilize our dedicated field teams on the ground, to share best practices and promote ongoing franchisee success.

Vendors

As a consumer-facing business, some of the environmental impacts of our products are located beyond our own operations, so our vendors are instrumental to the execution of our sustainability strategy. We engage with our vendors to gather feedback on new sourcing policies and to certify their compliance to the standards contained in our Code of Business Ethics and Conduct for Vendors.

Corporate Employees

Our employees are committed to building the most loved restaurant brands and their inputs guide business decisions, maintain strong relationships with our suppliers and franchisees, and foster a safe workplace, all of which help us in achieving this goal.

Hosting townhall meetings and quarterly all-employee meetings allow for frequent updates and progress checkpoints to be communicated across the entire business. We also make sure we collect employee feedback, from two-way engagement to regular surveys, we care about what our people think and use their insights to influence our strategy.

Local Communities/Community Organizations

Along with our restaurant owners, we are committed to strengthening and giving back to the communities we serve through our brand foundations and by supporting local programs and issues that are close to our guests’ hearts. Through our foundations – Tim Hortons Foundation Camps, the Burger King Foundation, the Popeyes Foundation and the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation – our brands are devoted to contributing time, talent and funds to build up the communities they serve.

Government

Through direct engagement or industry associations, we engage with policymakers to understand priorities and demonstrate regulation compliance. We work to inform legislative and government officials of our commitment, and advocate in the best interest of our brands.

Investors

Sustainability issues and goals have become an increasingly important topic of conversation with our investors. We know that those invested in our brands expect transparency regarding both financial and non-financial information, with an emphasis on the future direction of our brands. Through engagements such as annual shareholder meetings, quarterly earnings reports and direct meetings, we aim to regularly communicate updates while seeking feedback and responding to inquiries.

Industry Associations/Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)

By engaging with a range of NGOs and industry associations, we gain external perspectives on policies that help inform decisions and support strategies. Memberships with industry associations allow us to share knowledge with and learn from like-minded businesses, supporting mutual interests and goals.