Andrew Savitz - The Triple Bottom Line: How Todays Best-Run Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success - and How You Can Too

Informative, persuasive, and practical, containing valuable advice for anyone seeking a more responsible and profitable approach to business.

Steve Reinemund, former chairman and chief executive officer, PepsiCo

An engaging mix of powerful ideas and practical advice. Values matter, and Savitz shows how profitability and responsibility can and must go hand in hand.

Michael Morris, former president and chief executive officer, American Electric Power

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, Savitz and Weber recall Thoreau saying, as when you find a trout in the milk. The flood tide of corporations they profile provides powerful evidence that the triple bottom line is going mainstream.

John Elkington, founder and chief entrepreneur, SustainAbility

A timely contribution to why big corporations engage in sustainable development and how managers can implement it in their companies.

Bjorn Stigson, former president, World Business Council for Sustainable Development

Must-reading for any corporate manager or investor seeking the sweet spot where financial and stakeholder interests meet. It provides powerful arguments, cogent analysis, great stories, and dozens of real-world insights into how companies are enhancing profits through sustainability strategies.

Mindy Lubber, president, CERES; former regional administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Savitz and Weber's The Triple Bottom Line offers a perspective that is already influencing the wisest and most socially responsive corporations in the world. This well-written, insightful, and practical book will guide executives for decades to come.

Max Bazerman, Jesse Isador Straus Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

Amidst the proliferating number of books on corporate sustainability topics, Savitz's The Triple Bottom Line is a refreshing relief. Its accessible style, jargon-free language, and thematic organization avoid the tendency toward cheerleading and case study overdose characteristic of the field. Savitz speaks with clarity, authority, and good humor.

Allen White, senior fellow, Tellus Institute; cofounder, Global Reporting Initiative

The Triple Bottom Line is full of practical advice based on Savitz's hands-on experience working with corporate managers. This book is a very readable guide for those who want to build a successful and sustainable business for the twenty-first century.

Arnold S. Hiatt, former chairman and CEO, the Stride Rite Corporation

Most executives have a superficial or misguided understanding of sustainability. The Triple Bottom Line should be required reading for business leaders who seek to enrich their shareholders, society, and themselves.

Scott Cohen, former editor and publisher, Compliance Week

Responsible leadership ensures that what we have today will be around for future generations. This book shows us both what it takes to lead responsibly and what happens when people fail to do so. An insightful book for those who seek how they can personally make a difference.

Samuel DiPiazza, former global chief executive officer, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Andy Savitz puts sustainability in a clear, practical framework supported with real business examples.

Travis Engen, former president and chief executive officer, Alcan, Inc.; chair, Prince of Wales' International Business Leaders Forum; chairman, World Business Council for Sustainable Development

Jacket design by Faceout Studio

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Savitz, Andrew W.

The triple bottom line : how today's best-run companies are achieving economic, social, and environmental successand how you can too / Andrew W. Savitz, with Karl Weber. Revised and updated.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-118-22622-3 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-33317-4 (ePDF); ISBN 978-1-118-33037-1 (ePub)

1. Success in business. 2. Social responsibility of business. 3. Industrial managementEnvironmental aspects. I. Weber, Karl, 1953-II. Title.

HF5386.S346 2014

658.408dc23

2013030805

To Penelope and to our children, Noah, Zuzzie, and Harry; their cousins, Louis, Sarah, Daniel, Olivia, Julianna, Elliot, Sophia, Jacob, and Jonah; and their offspring, who will hold us accountable.

Introduction

The whaling industry personified American prosperity for more than one hundred years. It employed seventy thousand sturdy seafarers and fueled hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses here and abroad, earning fortunes for boat owners and more than a few enterprising crewmates. The intrepid whaler was celebrated in song, story, and even high art, including what is arguably the greatest American novel, Melville's Moby-Dick. Whaling was a tale of courage and initiativea tale of America.

Today nearly all the whales are gone, and so is the industry built around them. The decline began in the mid-1840s, when hunters ignored decreasing stocks and continued harpooning grays, rights, humpbacks, and other species of this enormous, elegant mammal. Within a few years, the industry that had thrived for a full century collapsed entirely. The era of American whaling still stands as a symbolbut now it represents the shortsightedness of businessmen whose thirst for profit made their enterprise unsustainable.