Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business

I spoke at “The Big Ideas Summit” in London, run by the Procurement Social Network, Procurious. At this event Professor Omera Khan, Professor of Supply Chain Management & Strategic Supply Chain Risk Expert at Royal Holloway University was speaking and she recommended this book, in fact most of her talk was about “The Triple Bottom Line”.The triple bottom line (TBL) is a framework or theory that recommends that companies commit to focus on social and environmental concerns just as they do on profits. The TBL posits that instead of one bottom line, there should be three: profit, people, and the planet.At the time of writing we have companies boycotting placing advertisements with Facebook, because they cannot control where those adverts appear and they can therefore appear next to hate speech or subject matter that the brands do not want to be associated with.Brands today, know that their buyers are not just buying a product but the “belief system” around that brand, the company and the way it conducts business. You are not going to use a laptop or wear sneakers that are associated with a sweatshop in India or have mined the raw materials in an inappropriate way.This is book goes into a lot of detail, it is after all a textbook, about the history of sustainability and why companies need to think about the triple bottom line. Note, it was also published in 1999, so it is starting to feel its age. There is little on the use of the internet driving buyer behaviours and the way that the internet has meant that the buyer has become even more fickle in the way we buy. That said, over all it’s a good book, but a long and serious read.

Eye opening. Educational. Factual. Must-read for everyone interested in making change. Inspiring.

Used for studying

Great book! This and Visser's The age of responsibility are great reads an eye openers! This book is not only for students good read for professionals working in the PR or business!