Triple Bottom Line of Sustainability, Essay

In some cases, they have a direct vote: shareholders aligned with activist groups have been increasingly successful at forcing proxy votes on social and environmental issue" (Savitz & Weber, 2006).

Even more, politics are indirectly connected with TBL practices and stakeholders. The connection is made by stakeholders that may vote for or against candidates that favor or not the company in case, thus affecting the future activity of the company.

As mentioned above, it is difficult to make profit and protect the environment or support the community at the same time. But there may be solutions to this problem. For example, companies interested in including TBL in their Financial Reporting practices can try to find unexplored niche areas presenting opportunities of connections between social benefits and achieving profit.

For example, companies providing certain types of services may provide pro bono counseling for certain customer categories. However, there are cases in which common good and financial profit cannot coexist. or, even if a company does create certain benefits for some of its stakeholders, other categories of stakeholders might be negatively affected by the company's actions.

In cases of stakeholder conflict company managers must decide which stakeholder category will be favored in spite of others. In certain regions, environmentalists, on the one hand and antipoverty or public health activists, on the other hand, require opposite solutions to their problems (Savitz & Weber, 2006). Even more, there may be causes of conflict even within one category of stakeholders.Even if such cases are extraordinary, as they do not represent a majority, they make TBL integration very difficult to implement within the Financial Reporting Practices. It is expected that stakeholders' requirement will become more and more specific, thus generating more causes for conflict.

Therefore, it is not expected that significant progress will be achieved in this direction in the near future. Even more, given the diversification and expansion of stakeholders' needs, interests, and requirements it will be more and more difficult for companies to meet these objectives and to implement TBL principles within their financial reporting practices.

Reference list:

1. Waste Not, Want Not? (2009). Triple Bottom Line Magazine. Retrieved October 22, 2009 from http://www.tbl.com.pk/waste-not-want-not/.

2. Savitz, a.W. & Weber, K. (2006). The Triple Bottom Line. How Today's Best-Run Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success -- and How You Can Too. Jossey -- Bass a Wiley Imprint. Retrieved October 22, 2009 from http://books.google.ro/books?id=pYyqRxTeMe4C&pg=PA209&lpg=PA209&dq=triple+bottom+line+reporting+progress&source=bl&ots=9_SbCEUpMQ&sig=TPQ3wWXkqMCFi-HEr2Dji-dxYJY&hl=ro&ei=XnPgSuLwB4LwmwPE_v2mAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CCkQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=triple%20bottom%20line%20reporting%20progress&f=false......