Triple Bottom Line

Because corporations are established to profit and shareholders invest money with expectations of a greater return, managers cannot be given a directive to be “socially responsible” without providing specific criteria of checks and balances to which needs to adhere. Therefore, it is imperative to the success of a corporation for managers to not act solely but rather to act within the policies of the shareholders.

The Triple Bottom Line (TBL) accounting concept and framework was first created by John Elkington in the mid 1990’s, and has since changed the way for-profit, non-profit and government agencies measure the sustainability of their initiatives and company. The TBL framework is flexible and can be adopted and molded based on the specific needs of an organization. The framework is comprised of three parts, which are: social (People), environmental (Planet), and financial (Profit), commonly referred to as 3Ps. This framework does spark debate regarding the ethical problems behind measuring, quantifying and accounting for social and environmental variables, which is often not supported by many

According to the textbook, the triple bottom line is known as the people, planet and profit that measures an organization’s social, environmental and financial performance. The Chief Financial Officer at UPS stated that his approach is established in two beliefs “that companies have a responsibility to contribute to society and the environment, and that every investment a company makes should return value to the business.” The company has a responsibility to help the society and concern about the environment with the objective of gaining profit. UPS has established a five-step approach toward sustainability that will balance the needs of various elements. Therefore, one is too assessing your strengths, which will offer to make a major effect

The expectation that businesses behave responsibly and positively contribute to society all while pursuing their economic goals is one that holds firm through all generations. Stakeholders, both market and nonmarket, expect businesses to be socially responsible. Many companies have responded to this by including this growing expectation as part of their overall business operations. There are companies in existence today whose sole purpose is to socially benefit society alongside businesses who simply combine social benefits with their economic goals as their company mission. These changes in societal expectations and thus company purpose we’ve seen in the business community over time often blurs the line of what it means to be socially

TBL is a sustainable model for business that balances financial success, community participation together with ecological sustainability. The firm which employs triple bottom line towards capturing the set significances, processes as well as issues of the company might decrease and determine whichever harms resulting from company’s operations then create economic, social as well as environmental values of that the company. The model typically outlines that everything is supposed to taken into account that needs of the company 's shareholders, employees, stakeholders, governments, clients, business partners, local communities together with the entire public. Reporting through Triple bottom line (TBL) is currently turning out to be more ordinarily used across several sectors within

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is something that affects all companies and should be an active factor in the company’s decision making. It is something all corporations need to care about. CSR is when business’ or corporations take part in an initiative or campaign for a cause that will benefit society and/or in some way make the world a better place (Taylor, 2015). Initially, Corporate Social Responsibility started to take shape around the 1950’s, but some say that it dates all the way back to the 1800s, the idea of CSR was seen (Carroll, 2007). One may think that because it is dated so long ago, it doesn’t have an important impact today nevertheless, it is proven that Corporate Social Responsibility is a pathway for entities to self benefit as they are in the process of benefitting society.

As a newly established area in accounting, sustainability accounting and reporting extends the traditional model of financial and non-financial reporting to incorporate the company’s operational information, social and environmental activities, and their ability to deal with related risks. Not only do these acts have effects on society and the environment, but they also directly impact company’s financial statements. The most widely accepted definition of sustainability that has emerged over time is the “triple bottom-line”, which incorporates three key elements of performance: financial, social, and environmental viability (Slaper). These three aspects of sustainability reporting are also commonly referred to as the triple P’s: people, planet, and profit. Although sustainability has often been mentioned as the goal of many businesses, nonprofits and governments over the past decade (and studies have shown that an increasing number of companies and organizations are striving to make their operations more sustainable), determining how sustainable an organization is can become difficult and also raises many questions within this sub-group of accounting.

Triple Bottom Line (TBL) is a concept, invented in 1994, that it has come up with the three factors that company should follow in order to become sustainable including people, planet and profit (“Triple bottom line”, 2009). In the present time, many companies are more aware of becoming a sustainable company. This is because of the fact that many people today believe that in order for big corporations to become successful, they must try to become sustainable. Tesco is an example of a big corporation that is currently aware of the TBL. However, it seems like there are still negative aspects of their sustainability.

A triple bottom line model never merely quantifies an accomplishment or rather the wellbeing of a company through its conventional monetary bottom line. However, triple bottom line similarly measures social, ethical as well as environment performance of the company. Triple bottom line typically is an incessant process that shall assist the company in concentrating into the performance of a more sustainable business whereas demonstrating to local communities together with employees of that particular firm that is not merely looking forward on profit making, but similarly a greater common good for the company operations (Hitchcock and Willard, 2009).

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR, also called corporate responsibility, corporate citizenship and responsible business) is a concept whereby organizations consider the interests of society by taking

Organisations such as the Global Reporting Initiative and AccountAbility have embraced and promoted the 3BL concept for use in the corporate world. And corporations are listening. Companies as significant as AT&T, Dow Chemical, Shell, and British Telecom, have used 3BL terminology in their press releases, annual reports and other documents. So have scores of smaller firms. Not surprisingly, most of the big accounting firms are now using the concept approvingly and offering services to help firms that want to measure, report or audit their two additional "bottom lines." Similarly, there is now a sizable portion of the investment industry devoted to screening companies on the basis of their social and environmental performance, and many of these explicitly use the language of 3BL.^ Governments, government departments and political parties (especially Green parties) are also well represented in the growing documentation of those advocating or accepting 3BL "principles." For many NGOs and activist organisations 3BL seems to be pretty much an article of faith. Given the rapid uptake by corporations, governments, and activist groups, the paucity of academic analysis is both surprising and worrisome. Our recent search of the principal academic databases turned up only about a dozen articles, mostly concentrated in journals catering to the intersection of management and environmentalism. One book beyond Elkington 's has been

Corporate social responsibility has been one the key business buzz words of the 21st century. Consumers' discontent with the corporation has forced it to try and rectify its negative image by associating its name with good deeds. Social responsibility has become one of the corporation's most pressing issues, each company striving to outdo the next with its philanthropic image. People feel that the corporation has done great harm to both the environment and to society and that with all of its wealth and power, it should be leading the fight to save the Earth, to combat poverty and illness and etc. "Corporations are now expected to deliver the good, not just the goods; to pursue

Over 60 countries around the world, more than half of online shoppers are willing to afford products and services in higher prices from environmentally friendly companies (Nielsen, 2014). The sustainability concept as triple bottom line, also known as corporate social responsibility, applies to those organisations concerning about the interests of society by measuring the social, environmental and financial performance. According to Slaper & Hall (2011), people do not have exactly official and standard methods for measuring triple bottom line. Because the methods for measuring triple bottom line is uncertain, each business has different ways to measure TBL during a period time. Cathay Pacific, the international airline company, is one of businesses that use the sustainability concept to measure their development. Over the past few decades, Cathay Pacific's sustainable development shows the improvement on corporate social responsibility. In this essay, it will be discussed on the issue of sustainable development in Cathay Pacific by focusing on the triple bottom line: people, planet and profits.

TBL can also be measured, it is measured in terms of index or in dollars but there is no proper standards universally to measure sustainability. Few economic variables are that included in triple bottom line concept are

‘Corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) means that the firm has wider responsibilities in relation to objectives and people apart from the owners or shareholders (Beal and Goyen 2005). These responsibilities are achieved when the firm adapts all of its practices to ensure that it operates in ways that meet, or exceed, the ethical, legal, commercial and public expectations that society has of business. Objectives often associated with CSR include a responsibility to manage natural assets sustainably and not to pollute by chemical discharge, smell, noise, dust or other irritants; fair treatment of employees and ethical attitude towards clients. The other people include employees, customers, suppliers,