The Green

Triple Bottom Line = "[a concept that measures] organizational (and societal) success: economic, environmental and social. 'People, Planet and Profit' are used to succinctly describe the triple bottom lines and the goal of sustainability [www.sundancechannel.com].

"'People' (Human Capital) pertains to fair and beneficial business practices toward labor and the community and region in which a corporation conducts its business. A TBL company conceives a reciprocal social structure in which the well being of corporate, labor and other stakeholder interests are interdependent. A triple bottom line enterprise seeks to benefit many constituencies, not exploit or endanger any group of them. The "upstreaming" of a portion of profit from the marketing of finished goods back to the original producer of raw materials, i.e., a farmer in fair trade agricultural practice, is a not unusual feature. In concrete terms, a TBL business would not knowingly use child labor, would pay fair salaries to its workers, would maintain a safe work environment and tolerable working hours, and would not otherwise exploit a community or its labor force. A TBL business also typically seeks to "give back" by contributing to the strength and growth of its community with such things as health care and education. Quantifying this bottom line is relatively new, problematic and often subjective. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has developed guidelines to enable corporations and NGO's alike to comparably report on the social impact of a business.

"'Planet' (Natural Capital) refers to sustainable [www.sundancechannel.com] environmental practices. A TBL company endeavors to benefit the natural order as much as possible or at the least do no harm and curtail environmental impact. A TBL endeavor reduces its ecological footprint by, among other things, carefully managing its consumption of energy and non-renewables and reducing manufacturing waste as well as rendering waste less toxic before disposing of it in a safe and legal manner. "Cradle to grave" is uppermost in the thoughts of TBL manufacturing businesses which typically conduct a life cycle assessment of products to determine what the true environmental cost is from the growth and harvesting of raw materials to manufacture to distribution to eventual disposal by the end user. A triple bottom line company does not produce harmful or destructive products such as weapons, toxic chemicals or batteries containing dangerous heavy metals for example. Currently, the cost of disposing of non-degradable or toxic products is borne financially by governments and environmentally by the residents near the disposal site and elsewhere. In TBL thinking, an enterprise which produces and markets a product which will create a waste problem should not be given a free ride by society. It would be more equitable for the business which manufactures and sells a problematic product to bear part of the cost of its ultimate disposal. Ecologically destructive practices, such as overfishing or other endangering depletions of resources are avoided by TBL companies. Often environmental sustainability [www.sundancechannel.com] is the more profitable course for a business in the long run. Arguments that it costs more to be environmentally sound are often specious when the course of the business is analyzed over a period of time. Generally, sustainability [www.sundancechannel.com] reporting metrics are better quantified and standardized for environmental issues than for social ones. A number of respected reporting institutes and registries exist including the Global Reporting Initiave, CERES, Institute 4 Sustainability and others.

"'Profit' is the bottom line shared by all commerce, conscientious or not. In the original concept, within a sustainability [www.sundancechannel.com] framework, the "profit" aspect needs to be seen as the economic benefit enjoyed by the host society. It is the lasting economic impact the organisation has on its economic environment. This is often confused to be limited to the internal profit made by a company or organisation. Therefore, a TBL approach cannot be interpreted as traditional corporate accounting plus social and environmental impact.

"With the ratification of the UN ICLEI TBL standard for urban and community accounting in early 2007, this became the dominant approach to public sector full cost accounting. Similar UN standards apply to natural capital and human capital measurement to assist in measurements required by TBL, e.g. the ecoBudget standard for reporting ecological footprint.

"In the private sector, a commitment to corporate social responsibility implies a commitment to some form of TBL reporting. This is distinct from the more limited changes required to deal only with ecological issues."
(Wikipedia) [en.wikipedia.org]

There has been a lot of good news about green [www.sundancechannel.com] developments in virtually every field of commerce. Organizations have been researching and developing technologies for energy [www.sundancechannel.com], food and transportation. Many companies that are retrofitting old manufacturing and processing centers are learning to tighten their "waste belts" and consequently save huge amounts of money when antiquated manufacturing processes are overhauled. All of this has resulted in making sustainability [www.sundancechannel.com] a popular corporate fad. Oftentimes, even sustainable [www.sundancechannel.com] improvements that do not benefit the bottom line have been implemented due to the publicity they can garner a company. More... [www.sundancechannel.com]