Sustainability and The Triple Bottom Line
This week I had the good fortune to sponsor an event held by the P3-The Partership in Print Production at the Time Life Building in New York. The event was The Triple Bottom Line-Sustainability: A New Business Imperative. The speaker Andrew W. Savitz, wrote the book The Triple Bottom Line in 2006. At the time sustainability was on few peoples radar. Now three short years later we have seen a climate change scenario that seems to be accelerating, oil price volatility that saw prices climb to over $140 dollars a barrel then plummet almost as precipitously, as well as an economic crisis of historic proportions. Although companies are rightfully focused on surviving the current economic crisis, it is now apparent that sustainability is something that many are adopting as a core business principle.
Introduced in 1994, the term The Triple Bottom Line is generally credited to John Elkington. It measures business success by a new metric. A metric that takes into consideration three areas, economic, environmental and social. It is at the intersection of these three areas that an organization can recognize the benefits of the implementation of a truly successful sustainable business strategy. This is what Andy Savitz calls ‘the sweet spot” and it is the central thesis of his book.
The sweet spot embodies the literal meaning of “sustainability,” making your company viable for the long term by managing according to principles that will strengthen rather than undermine the company’s roots in the environment, the social fabric,and the economy.
In an entertaining, illuminating and at times provocative presentation, Andy challenged the audience (largely made up of print publishing members) to look at their businesses through the new lens of sustainability. Now, given the difficulties that many audience members have faced not just from the current gloomy economy but also from a fundamentally changing business model, you might have thought that the audience response would have been lukewarm. Instead the majority of the audience (IMHO) seemed to understand that The Triple Bottom Line is really about implementing sound business practices. Business practices that will bring benefits now as well as when the economy emerges from the current downturn.
-FR
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