The Triple Bottom Line

[Rambuchan]

I'm interested in finding out more about this economic paradigm, which places 'people and planet' alongside profit in the creation of a more sustainable model for 'development'.

Please provide examples of its implementation, comments and criticisms on these, and related ideas for discussion. Thanks.

 

[George2816]

I'm interested in finding out more about this economic paradigm, which places 'people and planet' alongside profit in the creation of a more sustainable model for 'development'.

Please provide examples of its implementation, comments and criticisms on these, and related ideas for discussion. Thanks.

Isn't that what islam is about??

 

[Rambuchan]

Not as far as I know. It's commonly associated with the establishment of a Green Economy. I've heard of examples in Bhutan, which apparently implements this on a nationwide basis, and also small scale examples in the USA. But I don't know that much about it yet, hence the thread being opened.

 

[Mulholland]

Never heard of the triple bottom line. I have however heard of a need to implement natural capital as an element in an accurate measure of economic growth. They might be related. Do you have a good link? It sounds interesting.

Industry Canada Link

Natural capital is the limiting factor for sustainable development while knowledge is the limiting factor for Neo-classical Economics. For example, it is fish availability which limits harvesting and not the size of the fleet; it is the standing forest and not the sawmills which limits cutting; it is not pumping or refining capacity which limits crude oil available on the market but the crude oil available in the ground (Daly, 1998).

Efficiency is theoretically neither necessary nor sufficient for sustainability (Common et al., 1992). However, to the extent that increasing the scarcity of natural capital improves the overall efficiency of the economy as well as sustainability, it seems that increasing the productivity of natural capital will necessarily improve both. Therefore, environmental economics will be useful for sustainability (Crabbé, 1997; Toman et al., 1995).

 

[Perfection]

Sounds like either a load of obvious or horsecrap. Either way, boo!

 

[Mulholland]

Sounds like either a load of obvious or horsecrap. Either way, boo!

The sad thing is, when aggregating GDP and basing our future projections upon it today we don't always take into account the load of obvious. I'm sure you've come across a few criticisms of using GDP as a primary indicator of economic progress Perfection.

 

[Rambuchan]

Never heard of the triple bottom line. I have however heard of a need to implement natural capital as an element in an accurate measure of economic growth. They might be related. Do you have a good link? It sounds interesting.

Industry Canada Link

I don't have any good links as it's mainly been through conversations that I know of this. I've been too busy today to go hunting and dig out any. Maybe tomorrow.

Natural capital is part and parcel of this Triple Bottom Line of course. It gets factored into both the profit and 'planet' lines of such evaluations. What I failed to mention earlier is that this is not only a Green Economy paradigm being proposed and which many cities, towns, counties, states and some nations have signed up to already. It's also an Ethical Economic paradigm in dealing with 'people', and factors in such slippery elements as happiness, as well as health, education, cultural longevity and a number of other factors that are often omitted from the usual GDP back slapping.

I hope others can chip in here as my week is proving busier than I hoped.

The sad thing is, when aggregating GDP and basing our future projections upon it today we don't always take into account the load of obvious. I'm sure you've come across a few criticisms of using GDP as a primary indicator of economic progress Perfection.

Indeed.