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Triple Bottom Line Essay Introduction: ‘Triple Bottom Line’ is increasingly attaining popularity as a conceptual framework for the purpose of measuring the level of business performance. The term was being coined by John Elkington, in his book entitled â€Å"Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business†. John Elkington has been the co-founder of the business consultancy SustainAbility. ‘Triple Bottom Line’ could be understood in a broad sense, as the range of values which companies need to uphold such as social, environmental and economic. In mere practical terms, the concept of triple bottom line intends to take into account the social and environmental performance of the company along with its financial performance. (The triple bottom line Business and Sustainable Development: A Global guide) The ‘triple bottom line’ indicates the point at which the corporate interests meet the societal interests. It is a novel method of measuring the bottom line, wherein profits tend to move along with the social as well as environmental performance and a method of understanding the concept of sustainability which is being considered to be often-fuzzy. (The Triple Bottom Line: How today’s Best-Run Companies are Achieving Economic, Social, and Environmental Success And How You Can Too) Summary Article: 1 Wayne Norman and Chris MacDonald in their article â€Å"Getting to the Bottom of Triple Bottom Line† state that by dedicating themselves to the concept of â€Å"Triple Bottom Line† it shows as if corporations are forming a more concrete as well as verifiable dedication to environment and society. But in reality, it allows the companies to virtually make no commitment at all. As a result of no real bottom lines for calculation relating to society or environment, companies do not have to be bothered about having these â€Å"bottom lines† in comparison to other firms which are within or without of their sector; nor is there any definite worry pertaining to the firm being considered to have reducing environmental as well as societal â€Å"bottom lines† over the various years or under the leadership of the present Chief Executive Officer of the company. Without a complete reliable collection of these reports along with the handy filing system, comparability over a period of time for one firm would be difficult as well as time-consuming. The company could also alter the indicating factors it would choose in order to report on over time. The authors emphasize further that on the one hand, the fact that the firms have created a social report or that of a code of ethics gives us less information with regard to a firm’s real dedication towards the principles being presented in the documents. It is also considered to be relatively of less cost in order to produce these documents, and particularly if they are vague, they do not usually bring any serious risks pertaining for a company. On the other hand, both the kinds of documents could play an important part in a company’s serious technique in order to improve upon its ethical as well as societal performance along with trying to integrate this objective into its boundary of corporate culture. The authors conclude that it is their understanding that clear as well as meaningful principles are the most likely to cater to companies of the latter kind; and that vague as well as literally less meaningful principles like those intended by the Triple Bottom Line are best suited only for promoting hypocrisy. (Getting to the Bottom of â€Å"Triple Bottom Line†) Article: 2 The author Steven F. Hayward in their article â€Å"The Triple Bottom Line: Authentic New Model or Tripartite Nonsense?† states that to the bottom level of profit-and-loss is being included two more groups which have their own balance sheets and these are environmental quality as well as social justice and it is what is being considered as the ‘triple bottom line’. However the author states that by including the term â€Å"social† to the concept of justice does not realistically include the values of justice. In real terms social justice is a disingenuous effort to turn justice by relating legitimacy in relation to a redistributive agenda. Further, with regard to environmental quality, most of the companies, particularly manufacturing companies, have emissions as well as resource-use profiles that could be brought up for measurement and improved by several methods. To add to it, most of the large corporations now tend to create annual environmental reports along with annual financial reports, mentioning the developments made by the firm on the environmental aspect. However most of these gains are considered to be just ‘efficiency gains’ which could be considered to be profitable in several cases, but a single-dimensional attention on efficiency gains removes taking into account both the opportunity cost of the working capital as well as the trained personnel in order to attain such efficiency gains against other tasks as well as any consideration with regard to the internal rate of return IRR on the company’s capital. A more general initiative has tended to elevate the concept of triple bottom line to that of a board level issue. However some of the environmentalists are not wasting their time for the purpose of serious conceptual efforts and have really started to warn the investors that firms that do not listen to the call of the triple bottom line will actually witness their market value to decline in the years to come. Steven F. Hayward provides several examples in this article of how environmentalists are trying to pressurize corporations to adopt social justice and environmental policies as part of their company policy. However examples of Enron’s bankruptcy shows that environmentalists are making their efforts to make corporations into social service units following a statist agenda. But this is something which market-oriented companies are not supposed to follow. (The Triple Bottom Line: Authentic New Model or Tripartite Nonsense?) Article: 3 The author Chris MacDonald in his article on â€Å"Ethics, jargon, and the triple bottom line† states that the supporters of the concept of ‘triple bottom line’ are not satisfied with the concept being just another form of a metaphor and they have made all efforts to make it into a full-fledged management concept and it is now one of the dominant as well as the progressive management concepts of the present day world. And the popularity of the concept tends to be skyrocketing. The author states that that the efforts of conscientious business managers in order to attend to the societal as well as the environmental implications of their business dealings are not at all out of importance. Knowledgeable and far-sighted managers had understood that such activities would tend to have the dual advantages of being right from both an ethical as well as the financial side. However it is not clear still that the concept of ‘triple bottom line’ adds anything valuable as to what the conscientious managers are already been doing. Further as it does not give any concrete and reliable measures to analyze the performance, the concept of ‘triple bottom line’ could even lead to a type of smoke and mirrors that will obscure the efforts of the less progressive firms. The author further asks as to what is the bottom line on the triple bottom line? He states that in their efforts to bring about ethical behavior, like that in anything else that they tend to do, firms should look carefully before they involve in buying. Another point to be noted is that, there should be careful reflection with regard to the best techniques as well as the tools for managers in order to ensure of their efforts to emphasize upon the ethical cultures in their companies. Ethics, whether it is in business or whether in the field of health care or politics, is really about thinking in a clear manner and understanding as to what our obligations really are and agreeing upon the principles that really make value and then abiding by those principles whenever times tend to get tough. (Ethics, jargon, and the triple bottom line) III. Compare/Contrast All the three articles show that even though the concept of Triple bottom line has become a popular approach to functioning of social and environmental commitments of the corporations, most of the companies tend to make less or even virtually no commitment at all towards the concepts of societal and environmental responsibility. As a result of the absence of any real bottom lines pertaining to societal or environmental performance for calculation, the comparability of firms is considered to be difficult and not worth-while. The authors agree that even though most large corporations now tend to create annual environmental reports along with their annual financial reports, mentioning the growth of the company with regard to several environmental benchmarks, a majority of these gains are considered to be only mere efficiency gains, which could be even profitable in several of the cases. Because the triple bottom line gives no concrete reliable methods to measure the performance levels, the concept could account to a type of smoke and mirrors that could obscure the actions of the less progressive firms. The authors of the three articles thus argue that Triple Bottom Line are best only for the purpose of promoting hypocrisy as companies are only interested in making profits and by adding the commitment towards environment and society in their company policy, they however do not make any concerted efforts towards improving the environment or society. In short, the three articles agree that because of its inbound emptiness as well as vagueness, the triple bottom line concept enables it easy for a cynical company to appear to be dedicated towards societal and environmental sustainability. 1V. Critical Evaluation: Even though the authors of the three articles state that the concept of Triple bottom line has not been made use of in the right direction, businesses are being forced upon in order to react to the societal, environmental and economic changes that are occurring in the world around them. Just as we understand that the global warming is basically changing the commercial as well as the regulatory landscape for the energy as well as the auto companies, similarly the occurrence of HIV/AIDS, SARS as well as contagious malaria is altering the fundamental business models for the pharmaceutical companies. In the ever-changing modern world, the real sustainable company would tend to have no requirement of writing checks for the purpose of charity or to provide back to the local society, as the firm’s daily functions would not tend to deprive the society, but would on the reverse tend to enrich it. (The Triple Bottom Line: How today’s Best-Run Companies are Achieving Economic, Social, and Environmental Success And How You Can Too) Conclusion To conclude, it can be said that there should be concerted efforts and research done to make triple bottom line as the model of the future and up-coming corporate firms. There should be strong regulated efforts made to create the awareness required that business firms even when contributing towards the societal and environmental concerns can tend to be financially successful. By giving equal importance for the society and environment, companies can tend to have a situation of ‘win-win’ on all sides. References Hayward, Steven F. The Triple Bottom Line: Authentic New Model or Tripartite Nonsense? Sept-Oct, 2002. Vol:12; No; 5. Religion and Liberty. http://www.acton.org/publicat/randl/article.php?id=437 MacDonald, Chris. Ethics, jargon, and the triple bottom line. The Chronicle Herald.   March 3, 2005. http://www.herald.ca/external/sobeys/march05.html Norman, Wayne; MacDonald, Chris. Getting to the Bottom of â€Å"Triple Bottom Line†. Business Ethics Quarterly, April 2004. http://www.businessethics.ca/3bl/triple_bottom_line_abstract.html Savitz, Andrew W; Weber, Karl. The Triple Bottom Line: How Today’s Best-Run Companies are Achieving Economic, Social, and Environmental Success And How You Can Too. Jossey-Bass/Wiley. September 2006. http://www.thetriplebottomline.net/ The triple bottom line. Business and Sustainable Development: A Global guide. 2007. http://www.bsdglobal.com/tools/principles_triple.asp