Sustainability in three dimensions

Abstract

The term 'sustainability' means different things to different people. Ultimately, however, it offers an opportunity to reconcile the sometimes opposing and always complex influences that arise in corporate life: customer and consumer, government and community, industry and environment. A focus on profit to the exclusion of all else is no longer enough - the bottom line is being replaced by the triple bottom line: economic prosperity, environmental quality and social justice. Organisations that ignore these pressures will find it increasingly difficult to operate and, in the long term, are unlikely to be sustainable.