NOT TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE REPORTING
The latest vogue in 'corporate sustainability' is the production of supplementary annual reports which cover a company's achievements in the areas of environmental performance and social responsibility. The ambition is to make the valuation of companies take account of factors other than mere growing profitability.
A number of the conventional problems persist in regard to Triple Bottom Line Reporting:
1) The notion of 'environment' that determines the parameters of any environmental report is usually restricted to 'natural ecosystems', at best also including occupational health and safety issues in the work environment. The very fact that such 'environmental reports' (as opposed to reporting on the idea of sustainability) remain distinct from profit-and-loss accounts, indicates the continued compartmentalisation that prevents the introduction of major structural changes across the whole business that would allow a company to become a provider and maintainer of products and services facilitating more sustainable lifestyles.
2) The emphasis on the 'Bottom Line' makes clear that an expansionist model is still underwriting company valuations. As with ecoefficiency, an Environmental Performance Report could document significant per unit improvements in the cleanliness of production, without mentioning that all such gains have been immediately undercut by a major escalation in the number of units being produced, no doubt funded out of the financial savings accompanying the introduction of ecoefficiency measures.
3) The emphasis on reporting suggests that a reformist model is still dominant. Measuring achievements is only possible if what is being measured remains the same. TBL is therefore facilitating an incrementalist process and discouraging the sorts of major structural changes that are actually needed for the development of sustainability. The focus on documentation certainly does not encourage the sort of radical innovations that sustainments aim to introduce.
The number of companies now producing TBL reports indicates that sustainability is a PR issue for companies, but until ecological issues make it into the very heart of strategic and business planning, the forward thinking that characterises sustainments, and is evident in Extended Producer Responsibility initiatives for example, will not be fostered in companies. Sustainments aim to give TBL something to substantial to report.
