Triple Bottom Line

An addition of social and environmental values to the traditional economic measures of a corporation or organization’s success. Triple Bottom Line accounting attempts to describe the social and environmental impact of an organization’s activities, in a measurable way, to its economic performance in order to show improvement or to make evaluation more in-depth. There are currently few standards for measuring these other impacts, however. The phrase was coined by John Elkington, co-founder of the business consultancy SustainAbility, in his 1998 book Cannibals with Forks: the Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business.
Please visit our sister site, Triple Pundit for more conversation about the Triple Bottom Line.

Comments

6 Responses to “Triple Bottom Line”
  1. Radhika Prabhu says:

    I was wondering if anyone is aware of business models that have been put to use to measure triple bottom line sustainability in the private sector or alternatively in the context of international development (development banks etc).
    Thanks!

  2. Why are you not listing Dominican University of California when placing yourself in the company of Stanford University and University of Colorado? After all, our program not only has an excellent faculty, our alumns are working on Climate Action (I am working on the plan for the City of San Rafael), and many other “green initiatives”. If you are trying to create a better world, you may start by recognizing institutions right in your neighborhood, and giving them credit where credit is due.

  3. cr12 says:

    yea check out http://www.e3bank.com they seem to be implementing a triple bottom line business model in an interesting way for the banking industry.

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  1. […] to the Sustainability Dictionary: The Triple Bottom Line is an addition of social and environmental values to the traditional economic measures of a […]

  2. […] triple bottom line (TBL or 3BL) accounting, Elkington promotes expansion of the accounting reporting framework to […]

  3. […] a reason why sustainability is often called the “triple bottom line.” It’s an acknowledgment that we need to consider the impact we have on people, planet and […]



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