The Sustainability Triple Bottom Line: Are the 3 pillars equal?
Many definitions of sustainability refer to the triple bottom line like a stool with three legs. Each leg represents the environment, society and the economy. The exercise of removing one leg at a time shows a hierarchy of importance.
Johanna Kloot
Founder GreenKPI
Oct 22, 2025
Sustainability is the relationship between Environment, Society and Economy
The economy and its role
The economy plays an important role in modern society. Before fiscal based economies we traded goods of value. Imagine a planet without economies today! Societies would most likely collapse, although the environment would be just fine.
The economy is a human-made construct designed to deliver goods from the environment to society. How will society access food and materials for life support?
Society and its role
Societies offer safety in numbers and human capital to grow and make the necessities using the materials provided by the environment. Societies today will suffer immensely when economies fail, although the environment often benefits.
The environment and its role
The environment is the life support system for all things living on planet Earth. Societies struggle to survive without access to supply chains to access the most essential items for life. Clean water and air are public goods we take for granted, until we lose access.
The lived reality of sustainability
The economy situated within our society, which itself is situated within the environment. This hierarchy places society and the economy within the environment.
The three pillars of sustainability are in fact layers, and not individual pillars holding up a single platform of sustainability.
The Circular Economy
Nature works in cycles that endure. For the relationship between the environment, society and the economy to endure, the circular economy has emerged as a system that uses and creates materials that flow in the economy without the need to extract from or pollute the environment.
Understanding our true reliances and placing the appropriate values in the correct places will purposefully guide our decisions and actions.
What does all this mean to business?
One of the most important tasks for business managers is the work of forward scanning. This entails risk analysis and keeping up to date with trends in consumer demand, regulatory changes, financial institutional requirements and resource availability. Of course there are more indicators to consider. Here we are focused on those that are relevant to sustainability.
It is clear consumers are seeking transparency from businesses, particularly millennials, who want to see that their purchases are not impacting negatively in any way.
Regulatory changes are adapting to both climate risk and resource availability, such as water supply, plus supply chain transparency to ensure human rights abuse is exposed.
Financial institutions are now factoring in climate risk when engaging with businesses seeking insurance and investment.
Resource availability for renewable materials is reducing across a wide range of commodities as natural processes degrade with loss of biodiversity, while non-renewable resources with finite availability, mostly requiring extraction are reducing as demand increases for finite supplies. As extraction costs increase, this must be either absorbed or added to pricing. This may not be an option during difficult times.
Sustainability shows the way to business endurance
Sustainability is another word for enduring. To endure means to have internal systems in place that work with external systems. No business entity exists in isolation. The management of staff, intellectual knowledge and IP, materials and customers are the main functions of a business.
Attracting and maintaining high quality staff is increasingly dependant on the culture of a company, with sustainability a major factor.
Material flows require mindful management to operate and maximum efficiency and least waste production, with unavoidable waste redirected into the circular economy.
Articulating a company’s sustainability with key stakeholders, plus other stakeholders including staff and community. Sustainability reporting has been subject to greenwashing in the past, although this practice is no longer acceptable and will result in the opposite of brand trust when attempted.
GreenKPI provides a simple and systematic approach to business sustainability.
Act, Measure, Report, Repeat.
Sustainability is the relationship between Environment, Society and Economy
The economy and its role
The economy plays an important role in modern society. Before fiscal based economies we traded goods of value. Imagine a planet without economies today! Societies would most likely collapse, although the environment would be just fine.
The economy is a human-made construct designed to deliver goods from the environment to society. How will society access food and materials for life support?
Society and its role
Societies offer safety in numbers and human capital to grow and make the necessities using the materials provided by the environment. Societies today will suffer immensely when economies fail, although the environment often benefits.
The environment and its role
The environment is the life support system for all things living on planet Earth. Societies struggle to survive without access to supply chains to access the most essential items for life. Clean water and air are public goods we take for granted, until we lose access.
The lived reality of sustainability
The economy situated within our society, which itself is situated within the environment. This hierarchy places society and the economy within the environment.
The three pillars of sustainability are in fact layers, and not individual pillars holding up a single platform of sustainability.
The Circular Economy
Nature works in cycles that endure. For the relationship between the environment, society and the economy to endure, the circular economy has emerged as a system that uses and creates materials that flow in the economy without the need to extract from or pollute the environment.
Understanding our true reliances and placing the appropriate values in the correct places will purposefully guide our decisions and actions.
What does all this mean to business?
One of the most important tasks for business managers is the work of forward scanning. This entails risk analysis and keeping up to date with trends in consumer demand, regulatory changes, financial institutional requirements and resource availability. Of course there are more indicators to consider. Here we are focused on those that are relevant to sustainability.
It is clear consumers are seeking transparency from businesses, particularly millennials, who want to see that their purchases are not impacting negatively in any way.
Regulatory changes are adapting to both climate risk and resource availability, such as water supply, plus supply chain transparency to ensure human rights abuse is exposed.
Financial institutions are now factoring in climate risk when engaging with businesses seeking insurance and investment.
Resource availability for renewable materials is reducing across a wide range of commodities as natural processes degrade with loss of biodiversity, while non-renewable resources with finite availability, mostly requiring extraction are reducing as demand increases for finite supplies. As extraction costs increase, this must be either absorbed or added to pricing. This may not be an option during difficult times.
Sustainability shows the way to business endurance
Sustainability is another word for enduring. To endure means to have internal systems in place that work with external systems. No business entity exists in isolation. The management of staff, intellectual knowledge and IP, materials and customers are the main functions of a business.
Attracting and maintaining high quality staff is increasingly dependant on the culture of a company, with sustainability a major factor.
Material flows require mindful management to operate and maximum efficiency and least waste production, with unavoidable waste redirected into the circular economy.
Articulating a company’s sustainability with key stakeholders, plus other stakeholders including staff and community. Sustainability reporting has been subject to greenwashing in the past, although this practice is no longer acceptable and will result in the opposite of brand trust when attempted.
GreenKPI provides a simple and systematic approach to business sustainability.
Act, Measure, Report, Repeat.
Sustainability is the relationship between Environment, Society and Economy
The economy and its role
The economy plays an important role in modern society. Before fiscal based economies we traded goods of value. Imagine a planet without economies today! Societies would most likely collapse, although the environment would be just fine.
The economy is a human-made construct designed to deliver goods from the environment to society. How will society access food and materials for life support?
Society and its role
Societies offer safety in numbers and human capital to grow and make the necessities using the materials provided by the environment. Societies today will suffer immensely when economies fail, although the environment often benefits.
The environment and its role
The environment is the life support system for all things living on planet Earth. Societies struggle to survive without access to supply chains to access the most essential items for life. Clean water and air are public goods we take for granted, until we lose access.
The lived reality of sustainability
The economy situated within our society, which itself is situated within the environment. This hierarchy places society and the economy within the environment.
The three pillars of sustainability are in fact layers, and not individual pillars holding up a single platform of sustainability.
The Circular Economy
Nature works in cycles that endure. For the relationship between the environment, society and the economy to endure, the circular economy has emerged as a system that uses and creates materials that flow in the economy without the need to extract from or pollute the environment.
Understanding our true reliances and placing the appropriate values in the correct places will purposefully guide our decisions and actions.
What does all this mean to business?
One of the most important tasks for business managers is the work of forward scanning. This entails risk analysis and keeping up to date with trends in consumer demand, regulatory changes, financial institutional requirements and resource availability. Of course there are more indicators to consider. Here we are focused on those that are relevant to sustainability.
It is clear consumers are seeking transparency from businesses, particularly millennials, who want to see that their purchases are not impacting negatively in any way.
Regulatory changes are adapting to both climate risk and resource availability, such as water supply, plus supply chain transparency to ensure human rights abuse is exposed.
Financial institutions are now factoring in climate risk when engaging with businesses seeking insurance and investment.
Resource availability for renewable materials is reducing across a wide range of commodities as natural processes degrade with loss of biodiversity, while non-renewable resources with finite availability, mostly requiring extraction are reducing as demand increases for finite supplies. As extraction costs increase, this must be either absorbed or added to pricing. This may not be an option during difficult times.
Sustainability shows the way to business endurance
Sustainability is another word for enduring. To endure means to have internal systems in place that work with external systems. No business entity exists in isolation. The management of staff, intellectual knowledge and IP, materials and customers are the main functions of a business.
Attracting and maintaining high quality staff is increasingly dependant on the culture of a company, with sustainability a major factor.
Material flows require mindful management to operate and maximum efficiency and least waste production, with unavoidable waste redirected into the circular economy.
Articulating a company’s sustainability with key stakeholders, plus other stakeholders including staff and community. Sustainability reporting has been subject to greenwashing in the past, although this practice is no longer acceptable and will result in the opposite of brand trust when attempted.
GreenKPI provides a simple and systematic approach to business sustainability.
Act, Measure, Report, Repeat.
