International Strategic Management - Essay Example

So, it is evident that for an organization to become sustainable it has to optimally care for people as well as the planet and this brings into the picture the concept of Triple Bottom Line (TBL). This concept is also known as the ‘people-planet-profit’ approach because as the name suggests, organization must have three different bottom lines of people, planet, and profit to function effectively and achieve success. However, this concept might not be applicable to the organizations during certain situations, necessitating corrective strategies.

So, this concept of the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) will be evaluated here firstly focusing on how it is indeed useful for businesses and then discussing the difficulties of measuring the social and environmental contributions that a business makes and how these difficulties can be managed. Triple Bottom Line (TBL) was originally an accounting framework which focused mainly on profits, return on investment, and shareholder value. However, it was John Elkington who reoriented this concept to include environmental as well as social dimensions in 1980s.

He further strengthened this reorientation by coining the phrase “people, planet, profit” in 1994. Elkington (2004, p.3) has defined TBL as the concept that “focuses corporations not just on the economic value they add, but also on the environmental and social value they add (or destroy)”. Elkington brings in broader perspectives by referring TBL to all the processes, issues, and values that organizations have to manage in order to eliminate or minimize their negative impacts on the social and environmental aspects.

“This involves being clear about the company’s purpose and taking into consideration the needs of all the company’s stakeholders—shareholders, customers, employees, business partners, governments, local communities and the public” (Elkington 2004, p.3). Chapman & Milne (2004)