We don’t just do it for the money…

Triple Bottom Line
Assuring our ethics is displayed in our economics.

The “Triple Bottom Line” is a concept that has gained popularity and credibility since its first introduction in the mid 1990s. TBL, or 3BL, refers to the ecological, social and economic bottom lines of any business, either for-profit or non-profit. It is also sometimes referred to as “people, planet, and profit” or “folks, place, and work”.

The idea is that an expanded set of responsibilities and criteria need to be taken into account in any organization, beyond simply its economic bottom line. An organization’s impact upon the natural capital and the social capital with which it interacts are equally important to the economic capital. This means that you can’t only use dollars as the complete measure of your success, for this speaks only to the traditional economic bottom line. Non-monetary considerations of your business’s impact on the people and ecology it affects must also be used as equal measures of your success.

The concept of TBL demands that a business’s responsibility lies with stakeholders rather than shareholders. In this case, “stakeholders” refers to anyone who is influenced, either directly or indirectly, by the actions of the firm. According to the stakeholder theory, the business entity should be used as a vehicle for coordinating stakeholder interests, instead of maximizing shareholder (owner) profit. What usually results is that your economic profits increase because your customers recognize that you are in business to improve the lot of your community and your environment and not only your own well-being. You are “Doing well by doing good.”

In a farmers’ market situation, this can be seen as not focusing solely on selling products [economic], but rather on offering locally produced items [ecological] produced by local people [social] to local people [social]. Similarly, having a farmers’ market results in the creation of a community meeting place [social] where shoppers can socialize and where they can purchase foods produced by the employment of local people. Since this entire package is what increasing numbers of shoppers are seeking, it is wise to keep in mind that we are not at market simply to push products. We do well by doing good.

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