As regulators, environmentalists and socially concerned shareholders play increasingly more powerful roles in the daily affairs of even the biggest companies, the most significant new business concept in recent years is sustainability. It's a hard-line approach to bottom-line fundamentals now being embraced by such aggressive managers as GE, Pepsi and Toyota with encouraging results. By focusing on common ground it helps convert hostile investors into allies and suggests ways to transform potential environmental confrontations into opportunities. The problems are real, so are the solutions that sustainability suggests. Hershey Foods Corp ignored it, and management faltered. Understand it, as Procter & Gamble has worked hard to do, and discover unexpected solutions. The Triple Bottom Line by former Rhodes Scholar Andy Savitz is the first book to chart the rise of sustainability, identify and explain this new management concept, and show organizations, of all sizes and industries, exactly how they can benefit from it.

Andrew W. Savitz knows about sustainability from two decades of work as a corporate environmental advisor and a founding partner of the sustainability practice at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, where he helped firms small and large increase their profitability and their responsiveness to environmental and social problems. Before that he was a senior environmental law officer for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Savitz now runs, Sustainable Business Strategies, an independent advisory firm in based in Boston.

Where most books on sustainability focus on how societies can benefit if companies take a more responsible approach, Savitz' text centers on how companies can become more profitable by doing the right thing. The author first looks at how and why some well known corporations have begun to respond to pressures for greater accountability in recent years, and then offers corporate leaders a set of tools--must-do's, don't do's, and simple charts and lists--and stories demonstrating how to adjust business practices to achieve sustainability. Formerly head of PricewaterhouseCoopers' Sustainability Business Services, Savitz' is now with an independent advisory firm based in Boston. Jossey-Bass is an imprint of Wiley. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

"Whether you are a corporate manager, investor, consumer, or public official, this book will change your view of how corporations can succeed for themselves and for society. Savitz combines vision and practical advice in an elegant presentation." George Stephanopoulos, chief Washington correspondent, ABC News anchor

"Informative, persuasive, and practical, containing valuable advice for anyone seeking a more responsible and profitable approach to business." Steve Reinemund, chairman and chief executive officer, PepsiCo

"The main challenge of sustainability is how to take it from concept to action. Andy Savitz communicates in plain language what sustainability is and how everyone in the organization can help achieve it." Charles O. Holliday, Jr., chairman and chief executive officer, DuPont

"An engaging mix of powerful ideas and practical advice. Values matter and Savitz shows how profitability and responsibility can and must go hand in hand." Michael Morris, chairman, president, and chief executive officer, American Electric Power

"At long last a plain English, action-oriented guide to business sustainability illustrated with practical examples from world-class companies." Richard Cavanagh, president, The Conference Board, Inc.

"Andy Savitz gets it. He also happens to be witty, sensible, and a good writer as well as a good business strategist — sort of a modern Ben Franklin. That makes this book a joy to read as well as indispensable for businesspeople who wish to succeed in this new age." Walter Isaacson, presidentand chief executive officer and former chairman, Aspen Institute

"A bold and readable foray into this complex subject. Readers will come away enlightened." Kert Davies, research director, Greenpeace US

The Triple Bottom Line by former Rhodes Scholar Savitz is the first book to chart the rise of sustainability, identify and explain this new management concept, and show organizations, of all sizes and industries, exactly how they can benefit from it.

The Triple Bottom Line is the groundbreaking book that charts the rise of sustainability within the business world and shows how and why financial success increasingly goes hand in hand with social and environmental achievement. Andrew Savitz chronicles both the real problems that companies face and the innovative solutions that can come from sustainability. His is a hard-line approach to bottom-line fundamentals that is re-making companies around the globe.

The first book to chart the rise of sustainability as a profit motive — an essential new management principle

In a survey of 900 global corporations released by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2003, 80 percent of CEOs said they believe "sustainability" is or soon will be vital to the profitability of their company, and 71 percent said they would consider sacrificing short-term profits to move their company towards sustainability — a sure sign that the world's leading CEOs see it as the corporate model of the future. Just what is sustainability? In a nutshell, it is a management principle that aims to create long-term shareholder value by seizing opportunities and managing risks related to the economic, environmental, and social impact of doing business. By putting the profit motive alongside a concern for the environment and for people, this movement has created what we unclear who "we" is — the author? call a "win-win-win" situation. Its leaders are solid in the Fortune 100 — companies like General Electric, DuPont, BP, Pfizer, and HP — and it is rapidly spreading to all companies that are looking towards a sustainable business model. The Triple Bottom Line is the first book to chart the rise of sustainability, identify and explain the new paradigm, and show organizations, of all sizes and industries, exactly how they can benefit from it.

Andrew Savitz (Cambridge, MA), perhaps the world's most foremost expert on the critical new subject of sustainability, is the lead partner in the Sustainability Business Services practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He also serves as PwC's liason delegate to the World Business Councilfor Sustainable Development and its representative to the U.S. Conference Board's Townley Center, which covers environmental and corporate social responsibility issues.

Introduction.

PART ONE: THE SUSTAINABILITY IMPERATIVE.

1. Selling Hershey: A Business Fable for Our Times.

2. The Sustainability Sweet Spot: How to Achieve Long-Term Business Success.

3. The Age of Accountability.

4. Business Responds.

5. Embracing Accountability.

6. The Backlash Against Sustainability.

7. Renewing the Penobscot: "A More Productive Use of Capital".

PART TWO: HOW SUSTAINABILITY CAN WORK FOR YOU.

8. Where Do You Stand Today? Your Self-Assessment.

9. Shaping Your Sustainability Strategy.

10. Launching Your Sustainability Program.

11. Managing Stakeholder Engagement.

12. Dealing with Special Stakeholder Challenges.

13. Measuring and Reporting Your Progress.

14. Creating a Culture of Sustainability.

Epilogue: The Future of Sustainability.

Appendix A: Glossary and Key Action Steps.

Appendix B: For Further Reading.

Notes.

Acknowledgments.

The Authors.

Index.