Triple Bottom Line

The concept of the triple bottom line captures the three ways in which a company’s performance can be measured. John Elkington refers to these three domains as (1) economic prosperity, (2) environmental quality, and (3) social justice. The concept implies that a company’s effectiveness cannot be judged by reference to financial performance alone. To become more sustainable, a company needs to meet the requirements and expectations of most, if not all, of its stakeholder groups, which include shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, the local community, and the natural environment. Performance with respect to all these stakeholder domains is reported, for example, in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) measures, on which an increasing number of companies rely. However, some observers argue that even future generations must be ...