Definition
For reporting their efforts companies may demonstrate their commitment to CSR through the following:
- Top-level involvement (CEO, Board of Directors)
- Policy Investments
- Programs
- Staffing resources
- Signatories to voluntary standards
- Principles (UN Global Compact-Ceres Principles)
- Reporting (Global Reporting Initiative)
Triple bottom line (TBL) accounting expands the traditional reporting framework to take into account social and environmental performance in addition to financial performance. In 1981 Freer Spreckley first articulated the triple bottom line in a publication called 'Social Audit - A Management Tool for Co-operative Working'. In this work, he argued that enterprises should measure and report on social, environmental and financial performance.
The phrase was coined by John Elkington in his 1997 book Cannibals with Forks: the Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business. Sustainability, itself, was first defined by the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations in 1987.
1988 also marked the foundation of the Triple Bottom Line Investing group by Robert J. Rubinstein, a group advocating and publicizing these principles.
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.
Read more about this topic: Triple Bottom Line
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