What is the Triple Bottom Line and Why is it Crucial for Business Success?

What is the Triple Bottom Line and Why is it Crucial for Business Success?

The ‘triple bottom line,’ a phrase first coined by John Elkington in 1994, is a concept that expands how a business’s performance is measured to include social and environmental goals to its financial bottom line.
The triple bottom line is therefore used as a measure of a company’s economic performance and valuation, its level of corporate social responsibility (CSR), as well as its environmental sustainability standards and impacts. And it matters: for example, a 2013 study by Cone Communications and Echo Research showed that 82 percent of consumers in the United States considered the company’s CSR when deciding where to purchase goods and services.