In 1994, John Elkington proposed a radical idea: companies should not be judged by profit alone. They should report on three separate bottom lines—profit, people, and planet. He called it the triple bottom line. The phrase caught on. Today, thousands of firms publish sustainability reports that track carbon emissions, employee turnover, and community investment alongside quarterly earnings.

The framework is not a law. It is an accounting ideal. A company might donate to a local school, switch to solar power, and still pay its workers poverty wages. The triple bottom line does not rank those trade-offs. It simply demands that they be measured and disclosed. Critics say the lack of a single score makes it easy to greenwash. Supporters argue that what gets measured gets managed.

Three Ps

• Profit: economic value created, not just revenue.
• People: labor practices, human rights, community impact.
• Planet: resource use, waste, emissions, biodiversity.

Some companies adopt B Corp certification to prove their commitment. Others integrate the triple bottom line into executive bonuses. The real test is whether the numbers change behavior, or just the annual report.