people + planet + profit
Since discovering the basic idea behind sustainable economics, I’ve been looking into a variety of sources for more information on this topic. The concept itself is known as a few different names, all with the same general idea. Some of the names I’ve encountered include a “restorative economy,” coined by the environmental entrepreneur Paul Hawken, a conservation economy, and the “triple bottom line” (TBL). Wikipedia has a good entry on the basic idea behind the triple bottom line.
Triple bottom line is also known as “people, planet, profit”, which is a pretty good way to introduce the idea en masse. It sends out a pretty basic message – that we care about these three things and want to have them all without a sense of compromise. It’s a catchy slogan, and it makes you feel good because seriously, who wouldn’t want a happy planet, happy people, and still have good profit?? I’ll have to talk about details in a future post.
The basic idea behind the other three names I mentioned above is the triple bottom line. The restorative economy aims to restore natural resources while encouraging industry and community growth. The conservation economy conserves natural resources, and a sustainable economy aims to make all sectors of the economy sustainable. They are all essentially the same, and they call for similar policy changes.
Before anyone brushes away this idea of people, planet, profit, I’ll share my perspective on this issue. First, we have a financial problem right now in our global economy. Many people have already admitted that we have a problem. There are a few different approaches in the next step. My natural inclination, as a trained research scientist, is to ask questions about the problem at hand. What caused this problem? What will happen if we return to the status quo? Is there any way to prevent this outcome? Others will jump to studying the problem, or jump to making quick fixes to restore the economy to the status quo. No studying necessary, just go back to the way things were before. Questions are important because they address the unknown variables of a situation. It’s true that the more questions you can think of, the more answers you’ll be forced to produce. That’s definitely difficult, but it’s unrealistic and unsustainable to simply ignore the challenging questions, and hope for good luck.
We definitely have a problem, people are studying it, and currently there are new economic models in production. TBL is essentially one of these economic models. While it is still just a concept, we can take this concept and ask if it can be translated into viable policy. We can treat this like an experiment, and see what sort of policy ideas will arise. Democracy is an ongoing experiment – if one law doesn’t work, repeal it.
Links:
- Conservation Economy Net
- Related post – Why a Blog?
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