Question

Identify what information entities are likely to provide if they use triple bottom line reporting.

Answer 1

The application of the TBL by businesses, nonprofits and governments are motivated by the principles of economic, environmental and social sustainability, but differ with regard to the way they measure the three categories of outcomes. Proponents who have developed and applied sustainability assessment frameworks like the TBL encountered many challenges, chief among them, how to make an index that is both comprehensive and meaningful and how to identify suitable data for the variables that compose the index.

The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), for example, consists of 25 variables that encompass economic, social and environmental factors. Those variables are converted into monetary units and summed into a single, dollar-denominated measure.6 Minnesota developed its own progress indicator comprised of 42 variables that focused on the goals of a healthy economy and gauged progress in achieving these goals.

There is a large body of literature on integrated assessment and sustainability measures that grew out of the disciplines that measure environmental impact. These are not constrained by strict economic theory for measuring changes in social welfare.9 Researchers in environmental policy argue that the three categories—economic, social and environmental—need to be integrated in order to see the complete picture of the consequences that a regulation, policy or economic development project may have and to assess policy options and tradeoffs.

Businesses

The TBL and its core value of sustainability have become compelling in the business world due to accumulating anecdotal evidence of greater long-term profitability. For example, reducing waste from packaging can also reduce costs. Among the firms that have been exemplars of these approaches are General Electric, Unilever, Proctor and Gamble, 3M and Cascade Engineering. Although these companies do not have an index-based TBL, one can see how they measure sustainability using the TBL concept. Cascade Engineering, for example, a private firm that does not need to file the detailed financial paperwork of public companies, has identified the following variables for their TBL scorecard:

Economic

Amount of taxes paid

Social

Average hours of training/employee

From welfare to career retention

Charitable contributions

Environmental/Safety

Safety incident rate

Lost/restricted workday rate

Sales dollars per kilowatt hours

Greenhouse gas emissions

Use of post-consumer and industrial recycled material

Water consumption

Amount of waste to landfill