The Triple Bottom Line

To ensure business success, companies must embrace sustainable management. Firms need to find the overlap between business interests and the interests of society and the environment before they can secure a lasting competitive edge. By making the case for sustainability as a fundamental business practice, The Triple Bottom Line became an instant classic when first published in 2006, showing a generation of business leaders how to find their sustainability sweet spot—where profitability merges seamlessly with the common good. Now updated with ground-breaking stories of successes and failure, this revision of The Triple Bottom Line is a critical resource for all managers and leaders.

• Features in-depth success stories of sustainability practices at major firms such as Wal-Mart, GE, DuPont, American Electric Power, and PepsiCo—and shows why companies such as BP and Hershey continue to fail
• Draws on Andy Savitz's 25 years of pioneering consulting and research in the field
• Includes all-new reporting and analysis on the practice of sustainability and the triple bottom line in business today, providing new insights on where sustainability is headed

The Triple Bottom Line is essential reading for any firm to meet the challenge of creating lasting value for both shareholders and society.

Introduction 1

Part One The Sustainability Imperative 11

1 A Bitter Aftertaste: Hershey Struggles to Master the Sustainability Challenge 13

2 The Sustainability Sweet Spot: How to Achieve Long-Term Business Success 33

3 The Age of Sustainability 53

4 Business Responds 76

5 The Backlash against Sustainability 92

6 Renewing the Penobscot: ‘‘A More Productive Use of Capital’’ 107

Part Two How Sustainability Can Work for You 129

7 Where Do You Stand Today? Your Sustainability Self-Assessment 131

8 Sustainability Jiu-Jitsu: Turning Short-Term Challenges into Opportunities 145

9 Shaping Your Sustainability Strategy 156

10 Implementing Your Sustainability Program 175

11 Managing Stakeholder Engagement 190

12 Dealing with Special Stakeholder Challenges 211

13 Measuring and Reporting Your Progress 237

14 Aligning Your Culture to Support Sustainability 256

15 The Emerging Multipurpose Company 270

Appendix: Creating a Sustainability Management System 289

Notes 300

Acknowledgments 314

About the Authors 320

Index 323

Andrew W. Savitz heads Sustainable Business Strategies, a consultancy that assists organizations to improve their Triple Bottom Line. Previously, he was a lead partner in the sustainability services group at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. He served as general counsel of Environmental Affairs for Massachusetts and founded the Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters. He is the author of Talent, Transformation, and the Triple Bottom Line (Jossey-Bass, 2013). Savitz’s online newsletter, The Savitz Report, helps companies leverage their human capital to accelerate the transformation to sustainability. Savitz lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

For more information, please visit getsustainable.net and thesavitzreport.com

Karl Weber is a writer and editor who specializes in business, politics, current affairs, history, and social issues. Among many other books, he coauthored the New York Times bestseller Creating a World Without Poverty with Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus. He lives in Irvington, New York, with his wife, Mary-Jo Weber.

In the twenty-first century, sustainability isn’t optional—it’s essential for business success. By making the case for sustainability as a fundamental business practice, The Triple Bottom Line became an instant classic when first published in 2006. It showed a generation of business leaders how to find their companies’ sustainability sweet spots—where profitability merges seamlessly with the common good. Author Andy Savitz drew on twenty-five years of pioneering consulting experience with Fortune 500 firms to share practical ways companies can achieve measureable success against economic, environmental, and social benchmarks—the three components of the triple bottom line.

Now this landmark book has been updated and revised for a new generation of business leaders. The Triple Bottom Line features in-depth success stories of sustainability practices worth emulating at major firms, with new and updated case studies from GE, Wal-Mart, DuPont, and many other companies large and small. Savitz also adds new analyses of businesses that have stumbled, showing how and why Hershey’s, BP, and others have suffered financial and strategic setbacks through sustainability missteps. This new edition also draws on the latest research to deliver fresh insights into the future of sustainable business, including the rise of B (for “beneficial”) corporations and other promising new organizational models, the growing importance of sustainability reporting, and new ways to align your company culture behind the Triple Bottom Line goals.

Now more than ever, The Triple Bottom Line is essential reading for business leaders as they tackle the challenge of creating lasting value for both shareholders and society.