Components For Success
Triple Bottom Line
The TBL is an accounting framework that incorporates three dimensions of performance: social, environmental and financial. This differs from traditional reporting frameworks as it includes ecological (or environmental) and social measures that can be difficult to assign appropriate means of measurement. The TBL dimensions are also commonly called the four P’s: people, planet, principals and profits.
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SOCIAL MEASURES
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ENVIRONMENTAL MEASURES
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ECONOMIC MEASURES
Social Measures
Social variables refer to social dimensions of a community or region and could include measurements of education, equity and access to social resources, health and well-being, standards of living, quality of life, and social capital. These variables can be measured and used as data input for project and policy planning purposes and results outcome assessment. The examples listed below are a small snippet of potential variables.
- Unemployment rate
- Median household income
- Relative poverty
- Post-Secondary degree attainment
- Average commute time
- Violent crimes per capita
- Health-adjusted life expectancy
Environmental Measures
Environment-related variables, such as air quality, water quality, and land use, represent quantifications of natural resources and reflect potential influences on the environment’s health and viability. Ideally, application of historical environment variable datasets helps identify long-range trends and assists organizations with assessments of environmental impacts of a policy or project. Specific examples include:
- Sulfur dioxide concentration
- Concentration of nitrogen oxides
- Excessive nutrients
- Electricity consumption
- Fossil fuel consumption
- Solid/Hazardous waste management
- Change in land use/land cover
Economic Measures
Economic variables are variables that deal with the bottom line and the flow of money. It could look at income or expenditures, taxes, business climate factors, employment, and business diversity factors. These variables can be measured and assessed to gauge past and current business performance and as tool elements for economic projections and impacts for project and policy planning. Specific examples include:
- Personal income
- Cost of underemployment
- Establishment churn
- Establishment sizes
- Job growth
- Employment distribution by sector
- Percentage of firms in each sector
Data for many of these measures are collected at the state/provincial and national levels, but are also available at the local or community level. Many are appropriate for a community to use when constructing a TBL framework. However, as the geographic scope and the nature of the project narrows, the set of appropriate measures can also change. For local or community-based projects, the TBL measures of success are best determined locally.