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Contents:
1 - Enter the triple bottom line; 2 - Triple bottom line: a review of the literature; 3 - CSR, sustainability and the triple bottom line; 4 - Accounting for sustainability: measuring quantities or enhancing qualities?; 5 - Tracking global governance and sustainability: is the system working?; 6 - Locating the government's bottom line; 7 - Towards reporting on the triple bottom line: mirages, methods and myths; 8 - Good intentions - bad outcomes? the broken promise of CSR reporting; 9 - What a fine mess! moving beyond simple puzzle-solving for sustainable development; 10 - Environmental cost accounting: coming of age?; 11 - Sustainability assessment model: modelling economic, resource, environmental and social flows of a project; 12 - Social capital at work: a manager's guide; 14 - Put up or shut up; 15 - Addressing the economic bottom line.
Review:
Some 15 years ago a new idea was put forward which sought to look at a company through a range of perspectives not just financial. This became known as the 'triple bottom line' (TBL) approach: the notion that in addition to finance, there were social and environmental reports (i.e. bottom lines) that could be produced. The rise in ethical and environmental investment meant that companies, like organic farmers, would need to report on their 'purity' in relation to these new concepts. Much like farming, also, the development of this idea has not grown in the way its early proponents would have liked. However, there's now enough material to attempt a review of the key ideas. Questions in the wake of a range of global corporate scandals make this increasingly appropriate and so this text should be a useful addition to the literature.
The reader is fortunate that in the first chapter, the review is conducted by the person who is credited with inventing the name. Here we have both personal insight and an overview of how it could/should develop in the future. Although the topic is still relatively young and small it doesn't mean that there is a lack of literature of the subject. Chapter two provides a useful overview of the main ideas. Chapter three and four are linked inasmuch as the former looks at the theoretical constructs of TBL, including its weaknesses, and the latter illustrates the problems and pressures of getting a thorough TBL and how this can be compromised. From the idea of history and theory we move on to a second group of contributors looking at the theme of governance. Chapter five starts with a look at the various ways reporting can be done. It makes sense that, in a globalising world, we select from a range of alternatives. This leads us on to chapter six where the focus is on government and financial systems: a crucial area if we are to get away from traditional accounting. If all this sounds like we are going in the right direction then chapter 7 and 8 provide a great antidote. Rather than look at the advances, these contributors consider what might have been with frustrations from both conventional organisations and NGOs. On a slightly different slant, chapter 9 examines reporting from the point of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Not the same as TBL but a close relative looking more at social relations in a wider sense than a balance sheet. The reader moves into another area for the next 4 chapters each of which analyses an approach (or set of approaches) in coming up with the numbers for TBL. As one might expect, this new field has a number of competing ideas although there is already a call for a unified set. Finally, lest we should think that it's all too much comes two final contributions which examine some of the excellent work that has actually achieved results. Case studies from the Co-operative Bank and Novo Nordisk tell what can be done and how it can also be moved forward.
Overall, this is a very good book. It's quite a dense read with few of the tables, figures and boxes that one might expect but against this the writing is accessible and, above all, it offers numerous discussion and study points from the basic material. Those already in the field have been offered a good introductory overview whilst the wider audience (in this case from senior secondary upwards) have got a great start for many areas of discussion in applied ecology and environmental science.