What Is CSR, Sustainability, Triple Bottom Line (3BL)?

Corporate Social Responsibility is the term that has been adopted by companies around the world to begin to address serious realities related to the future well being of our planet and our society, also commonly referred to as sustainability.

CSR is the deliberate addressing of these serious public interest issues into corporate decision-making, and respecting of the triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profit. Not only is CSR the 'right thing to do', but by smarter utilization of our limited resources and reduction of emissions and smarter energy usage, a dramatic ROI can be realized, making it even smarter business.

Increasingly, stakeholders in the world's largest corporations are demanding that their companies become more socially responsible and expect them to understand and address the social and community issues that are relevant to them. These issues encompass not only our limited natural resources and global climate change but also ethical and other neglected factors in the public sphere.

CSR policies function as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby businesses monitor and ensure its support to environmental, legal, ethical standards, and international norms.

Sustainability - The most widely accepted definition comes from "Our Common Future," Report of the United Nations' World Commission on Environment and Development, commonly called the The Brundtland Report. "Sustainability is the aspiration to ensure that meeting the needs of the present does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

Video about sustainability: You tube link...

In practical terms, triple bottom line accounting means expanding the traditional reporting framework to take into account ecological and social performance in addition to financial performance.

The concept of TBL demands that a company's responsibility lies with stakeholders rather than shareholders. In this case, "stakeholders" refers to anyone who is influenced, either directly or indirectly, by the actions of the firm. According to the stakeholder theory, the business entity should be used as a vehicle for coordinating stakeholder interests, instead of maximizing shareholder (owner) profit. -wikipedia.org.

The Bottom Lines: People, Planet, Profit -or- Social, Environmental, Economic

• "People" (human capital) pertains to fair and beneficial business practices toward labor and the community and region in which an organization conducts its business.
• "Planet" (natural capital) refers to sustainable environmental practices.
• "Profit" is the economic value created by the organization after deducting the cost of all inputs.