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The triple bottom line is an accounting framework with three parts: social, environmental and economic. Some organizations have adopted the TBL framework to evaluate their performance in a broader perspective to create greater business value. Business writer John Elkington claims to have coined the phrase in 1994.
Life cycle assessment or LCA is a methodology for assessing environmental impacts associated with all the stages of the life cycle of a commercial product, process, or service. For instance, in the case of a manufactured product, environmental impacts are assessed from raw material extraction and processing (cradle), through the product's manufacture, distribution and use, to the recycling or final disposal of the materials composing it (grave).
In business analysis, PEST analysis describes a framework of macro-environmental factors used in the environmental scanning component of strategic management. It is part of an external environment analysis when conducting a strategic analysis or doing market research, and gives an overview of the different macro-environmental factors to be taken into consideration. It is a strategic tool for understanding market growth or decline, business position, potential and direction for operations.
Ecolabels and Green Stickers are labeling systems for food and consumer products. The use of ecolabels is voluntary, whereas green stickers are mandated by law; for example, in North America major appliances and automobiles use Energy Star. They are a form of sustainability measurement directed at consumers, intended to make it easy to take environmental concerns into account when shopping. Some labels quantify pollution or energy consumption by way of index scores or units of measurement, while others assert compliance with a set of practices or minimum requirements for sustainability or reduction of harm to the environment. Many ecolabels are focused on minimising the negative ecological impacts of primary production or resource extraction in a given sector or commodity through a set of good practices that are captured in a sustainability standard. Through a verification process, usually referred to as "certification", a farm, forest, fishery, or mine can show that it complies with a standard and earn the right to sell its products as certified through the supply chain, often resulting in a consumer-facing ecolabel.
In economics, a durable good or a hard good or consumer durable is a good that does not quickly wear out or, more specifically, one that yields utility over time rather than being completely consumed in one use. Items like bricks could be considered perfectly durable goods because they should theoretically never wear out. Highly durable goods such as refrigerators or cars usually continue to be useful for several years of use, so durable goods are typically characterized by long periods between successive purchases.
A sustainable business, or a green business, is an enterprise that has minimal negative impact or potentially a positive effect on the global or local environment, community, society, or economy—a business that strives to meet the triple bottom line. They cluster under different groupings and the whole is sometimes referred to as "green capitalism." Often, sustainable businesses have progressive environmental and human rights policies. In general, business is described as green if it matches the following four criteria:
- It incorporates principles of sustainability into each of its business decisions.
- It supplies environmentally friendly products or services that replaces demand for nongreen products and/or services.
- It is greener than traditional competition.
- It has made an enduring commitment to environmental principles in its business operations.
Worldchanging was a nonprofit online publisher that operated from 2003 to 2010. Its strapline was A bright green future. It published newsletters and books about sustainability, bright green environmentalism, futurism and social innovation.
Sustainability advertising is communications geared towards promoting social, economic and environmental benefits (sustainability) of products, services or actions through paid advertising in media in order to encourage responsible behavior of consumers.
Bright green environmentalism is an ideology based on the belief that the convergence of technological change and social innovation provides the most successful path to sustainable development.
Sustainable procurement is a process whereby organizations meet their needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a life-cycle basis while addressing equity principles for sustainable development, therefore benefiting societies and the environment across time and geographies. Procurement is often conducted via a tendering or competitive bidding process. The process is used to ensure the buyer receives goods, services or works for the best possible price, when aspects such as quality, quantity, time, and location are compared. Procurement is considered sustainable when organizations broadens this framework by meeting their needs for goods, services, works, and utilities in a way that achieves value for money and promotes positive outcomes not only for the organization itself but for the economy, environment, and society. This framework is also known as the triple bottom line, which is a business accounting framework. The concept of TBL is narrowly prescribed, and even John Elkington, who coined the term in the 1990s, now advocates its recall. Indeed, procurement practitioners have drawn attention to the fact that buying from smaller firms, locally, is an important aspect of sustainable procurement in the public sector. Ethics, culture, safety, diversity, inclusion, justice, human rights and the environment are additionally listed as important aspects of SPP.
The fair trade debate concerns the ethics and economic implications of fair trade, and alleged issues with the Fairtrade brand in particular.
Sustainable fashion is a term describing products, processes, activities, and actors aiming to achieve a carbon-neutral fashion industry, built on equality, social justice, animal welfare, and ecological integrity. Sustainable fashion concerns more than addressing fashion textiles or products. It addresses the entire process in which clothing is produced, consumed and disposed; who, what, how, when, where and the expected useful life of the product before entering landfill. The sustainable movement looks to combat the large carbon footprint that fast fashion has created by reducing the environmental impact of fashion such as air pollution, water pollution and overall climate change.
Sustainable diets are defined as "those diets with low environmental impacts that contribute to food and nutritional security and to healthy lives for present and future generations. Sustainable diets are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable, are nutritionally adequate, safe, and healthy, and optimize natural and human resources." These diets attempt to address nutrient deficiencies and excess, all of the while covering ecological phenomena such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and land degradation.
Sustainable consumption is the use of products and services in ways that minimize impacts on the environment in order for human needs to be met in the present but also for future generations. Sustainable consumption is often paralleled with sustainable production; consumption refers to use and disposal not just by individuals and households, but also by governments, businesses, and other organizations. Sustainable consumption is closely related to sustainable production and sustainable lifestyles. "A sustainable lifestyle minimizes ecological impacts while enabling a flourishing life for individuals, households, communities, and beyond. It is the product of individual and collective decisions about aspirations and about satisfying needs and adopting practices, which are in turn conditioned, facilitated, and constrained by societal norms, political institutions, public policies, infrastructures, markets, and culture."
Supply-chain sustainability is the impact a company’s supply chain can make in promoting human rights, fair labor practices, environmental progress and anti-corruption policies. There is a growing need for integrating sustainable choices into supply-chain management. An increasing concern for sustainability is transforming how companies approach business. Whether motivated by their customers, corporate values or business opportunity, traditional priorities such as quality, efficiency and cost regularly compete for attention with concerns such as working conditions and environmental impact. A sustainable supply chain seizes value chain opportunities and offers significant competitive advantages for early adopters and process innovators.
Sustainable products are those products that provide environmental, social and economic benefits while protecting public health and environment over their whole life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials until the final disposal.
Sustainable consumer behavior is the sub-discipline of consumer behavior that studies why and how consumers do or do not incorporate sustainability priorities into their consumption behavior. It studies the products that consumers select, how those products are used, and how they are disposed of in pursuit of consumers' sustainability goals.
Life cycle thinking is a holistic approach to thinking about the environmental impact of products beyond manufacturing to also include extraction, consumption and end of life. This style of thinking considers the processes involved in the use of a product from the point of a product's creation to the end of its useful life. This is generally known as the product life cycle. Raw material extraction, material processing, transportation, distribution, consumption, reuse/recycling, and disposal are examined. This approach may also consider the processes needed for socioeconomic activities, such as utility use. When analyzing the effects of life cycles, limits to evaluation are subject to the assessment approach taken. Some approaches go beyond environmental issues to also consider social and economic impacts.
Ecometrics is the quantitative analysis of economic, environmental, and societal systems based on the concurrent development of empirical theory, related by appropriate methods of inference in attempts to create more sustainable systems. Broadly defined, Ecometrics is a way to evaluate if an activity is contributing to more sustainable systems of production and consumption. Ecometrics is a system of statistical extrapolation and interpolation that uses principles of resource management in economic and environmental studies to analyze trends in consumption. With a comprehensive understanding of ecometrics, and thereby an understanding of the impacts of specific conscious or conventional opportunity costs, agents within economic systems can cause measurable change for the triple bottom line. The term was originally trademarked by Interface Global, a corporation founded by Ray Anderson. The parameters that cause change are often population, technology, transportation, consumption, public conscious, non-renewable or renewable resources, location, labor conditions, transportation and wealth. Ecometrics is used in labeling programs such as the US EPA Fuel Economy and Environment Label to determine the environmental and financial advantages of purchasing one car over another. There are many applications of Ecometrics for Environmental Impact Calculators infographics, and for political analysis. Because the parameters of ecometrics vary drastically for any activity, the applications of its resulting measurements are sometimes unilateral. Applied ecometrics exposes the complexity of making sustainable decisions, especially given other humanitarian goals such as third world economic development. In this way ecometrics shows any choice within consumption and production systems as wicked problems.
Globalization of supply chains and pressure to lower production costs have negatively impacted environments and communities around the world, especially in developing nations where production of high demand goods is increasingly taking place. Since the 1990s, awareness of these negative impacts has grown, leading stakeholders to push companies to take responsibility and actively work to improve the sustainability of their supply chains. It has come to be understood that a company is only as sustainable as the start of its supply chain, bringing about the need for sustainable sourcing. Sustainable sourcing refers to the inclusion of social, environmental, and economic criteria in the sourcing process.
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