The Triple Bottom Line Explained

The Triple Bottom Line Explained
Wayne D. King

You may have heard representatives of companies talking about their Triple Bottom Line. You probably stayed quiet because you held to the tenet that it is far better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. At the same time, you made a mental note to look it up on Wikipedia when you were in front of your computer. You may have forgotten to do this so we're providing you with a brief explanation here with references to some other places to learn more.

The concept of the Triple Bottom Line in its simplest terms describes expanding the traditional business reporting framework to take into account the environmental and social performance of a business in addition to their financial performance.

The concept comes from a term coined by John Elkington, founder of the think tank and consultancy SustainAbility. First adopted by the nonprofit world - and specifically those NGOs and NPOs whose missions were synergistic, it is now finding a place in the corporate world with large and small companies embracing the concept, if not the practice.

The triple bottom line is made up of three different bottom lines: separate but interrelated within the concepual framework of the Triple Bottom Line:

• social costs and benefits;
• economic costs and benefits; and,
• environmental costs and benefits.

Geese Over Tamarack

Social Costs and Benefits: By keeping human capital in mind, from both the perspective of your workforce as well as the community, a Triple Bottom Line business integrates the well-being of the company, the employees and the community.

Environmental Costs and Benefits: A Triple Bottom Line business integrates the natural environment into its inventory of concerns at the top level. Using best practices a Triple Bottom Line business seeks to minimize its environmental impact and non renewable energy consumption.

Economic Costs and Benefits: In a Triple Bottom Line company profit takes on a broader meaning than in a company where corporate responsibility is held silent. The company is profitable in the classic sense but the profit concept is expanded to the broader community as well.

Consideration of the Triple Bottom Line can take root in a simple philosophical standard that becomes more sophisticated as the business grows or be implimented immediately as a set of standards into the accounting practices of the company. In the case of the later approach it takes on a much more complex and costly form, though - by virtue of it demonstrability - that cost may be justifiable in the market.

For this and other reasons, it is often best for companies to use consultants to develop their approach to the triple bottom line, where larger companies can afford full time employees dedicated to the process, smaller companies n a temporary basis who can bring the most current best practices to light.

Bearing in mind that Economics is not a hard science to begin with, a concept like the Triple Bottom Line is open to interpretation but, most important, by embracing a broader conceptual framework for a company's bottom line it opens up a much broader and dynamic array of best practices.

For example: the practice of recycling is in the process of evolving from a "cradle to grave" approach to a "cradle to cradle" approach. A cradle to grave approach examines the product after conception and production. In other words, a product is created and the emphasis of recycling focuses on creating the best possible way to reuse as many components as possible. In the new "cradle to cradle" approach, the corporation that produces the product considers the environmental issues initially in the conceptual stages in order to maximize the recyclability of the product and minimize the waste produced after complete recycling. Additionally the company that is employing best practices under a Triple Bottom Line imperative, gravitates to the product that has been created with a cradle to cradle approach.

"A Breathless Moment Among the Lupine"

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ICLEI Unveiled

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. Robert Kennedy

ICLEI stands for International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives

ICLEI is an international association of local governments and national and regional local government organizations that have made a commitment to sustainable development. More than 1000 cities, towns, counties, and their associations in 68 countries comprise ICLEI's growing membership. ICLEI works with these and hundreds of other local governments through international performance-based, results-oriented campaigns and programs.

ICLEI provides technical consulting, training, and information services to build capacity, share knowledge, and support local government in the implementation of sustainable development at the local level. ICLEI's basic premise is that locally designed initiatives can provide an effective and cost-efficient way to achieve local, national, and global sustainability objectives.

ICLEI Website

"Dusk on the Rumney Town Common"

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Maximum Oil Pickup - Cradle to Cradle Green Oil Spill Remediation

One of the biggest challenges faced by green products is the common misperception that by creating a sustainable product you must, by necessity, leave something out that really makes it work. We call it the methyl-ethyl-bad-stuff argument - well we use a different word than stuff but not in a family environment.


Not so with Maximum Oil Pickup. In fact, we'd wager that MOP, and its compliment of deployment products, is the most effective, environmentally sound, invention to date for rapidly mitigating oil spills of any size from the Exxon Valdez to your garage.

From a sustainability perspective one of the things that makes it even more intriguing is that it is a cradle to cradle green product. Created by recycling an otherwise unrecycled fiber product created in the process of creating another fiber product, and other celluose based fibers in a plant operated by electricity generated by MOP's own hydoplant, the production of the Mop sorbent (the name for the oil spill cleanup product) is all created with green technology and green energy.

Certified in 2008 by the EPA for oil spill cleanup on both land and water, MOP is one of the few products capable of providing mitigation in both environments.

Charles Diamond, President MOP

About the Sorbent
The MOP sorbent comes in two forms one optimized for land cleanup and one optimized for water cleanup. Using a secret patented process involving biodegradable materials the final product makes the sorbent Oleophyllic (oil loving/absorbant) and hydrophobic (water hating/repelling). The moment that the sorbent is spread on the oil spill on land or water, it sucks up the oil and repels the water. This means that as the sorbent is cleaned up only oil is captured with it.

Using any one of several different processes, the oil can then be extracted for reuse from the sorbent and the sorbent can be burned as fuel. Extraction yields 95% of the usable oil. MOP environmental (the company name)is currently designing a carbon negative biomass energy system which will be able to burn the used sorbent. One 20lb bag of MOP will capture as much as 600 lbs of oil.

Just what does this mean for the company's that deploy the MOP system? To begin with it means that they can stress the sustainable nature of the oil recovery process. They can also recover the oil and use or sell it. For a recovery company, this means they add an entirely new profit center to their operations. They charge for the recovery and mitigation and then they are able to sell the recovered product. Its the best of all possible worlds.

For shippers, drillers, refineries and others in the oil drilling, moving or refininjg business, they have a mitigation system that offers rapid deployment, exceedingly effective cleanup, oil consumption for small amounts of oil missed in any cleanup and recovery of the product. Again, the best of all possible worlds.

Rapid Response Capabilities and Delivery Systems
Since development of the sorbent is only part of the solution, the folks at MOP Environmental have been working on a whole host of delivery systems for the sorbent, including: booms, pillows, loose material bag and the fabled MOP Canon. The MOP canon looks a little like the offspring of a vacuum cleaner and an artillery gun, but operates like an air canon, shooting the loose dry sorbent out as a speed of 150 MPH and spreading it evenly over a distance of 50 feet.

According to President Charles Diamond, "In a series of tests designed to evaluate the speed of deployment, the company found that one MOP canon could apply enough MOP to neutralize the harmful effects of an oil spill at a rate of at least 1,000 bbl/hr. “That’s a conservative estimate, and it can be as high as 1,500 bbl in one hour’s time,” Diamond confirms.

According to Diamond 10 MOP canons, placed on fast-moving boats, could completely neutralize an Exxon Valdez-sized spill in about 24 hours,” Diamond says.

Different deployment scenarios exist depending on the weather conditions. “We can spray MOP on top of a spill if the weather is cooperative,” says Diamond. "Where more difficult weather patterns exist, we have a deployment method that allows us to bring our product in underneath the spill, essentially bubbling it into the spill.”

Pickup onshore can be performed with shovels, heavy equipment and hand implements. Offshore pickup can be performed with skimmers dragged behind a boat. MOP sorbent also contains a fine grit additive that immediately restores traction and safe footing on hard, slippery surfaces.

Product Cost, Storage and other Factors.
Already competitive on a volume basis, the level of product efficiency and the ability to reuse the spent sorbent for fuel result in a significant reduction in remediation costs, according to Diamond. “There are savings both in the low cost of the product itself, and in the operation. Because MOP has a much higher pickup ratio than alternatives like clay, MOP uses one-tenth as much space for storage and is much easier to handle. Imagine one worker carrying two 20-lbm bags of MOP versus two workers unloading a ½-ton pickup truck loaded with 25 to 40 bags of clay for the same oil spill.”

MOP is also lightweight and has a unit cost that is less than one-third the cost of clay. “Arguably the most important feature of MOP is the option of 95% oil recovery for as little as USD 0.25 per gallon and subsequent elimination of hazmat disposal cost. What was formerly on the expense side of the ledger is transferred to the bottom line as profit instead. "according to Diamond.

MOP Environmental Solutions has several expansion plans in the works for MOP this year includng an entire value added line of spill kits for every conceivable need.

Diamond is optimistic that the MOP technology’s holistic approach to oil remediation will be a positive draw for any operator facing the potential for oil spills in any process. “This technology could be seen as taking a very negative environmental event, an oil spill, and turning it into a positive.

In the first place, you’re intercepting a material [the cellulose-based starting material from a fiber-manufacturing process] that normally would not have a recycling path,” he continues. “You give it a recycling path by converting it to MOP, and then apply it in the field to solve an environmental problem without creating any additional waste streams and minimal by-products. Essentially, you’re taking a problem material and using it to solve a bigger problem.”

For more information about MOP and other remediation technologies, visit http://www.ecoscienceusa.com/.

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Moosewood Communications is an Intellectual Equity Investor in MOP.

To learn more about Intellectual Venture Capitalism, click here.

"Among the Mangroves"

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An Open Letter to the City of Fitchburg, MA

By Wayne D. King
Fitchburg is planning to turn off 60% of its lights this year to save money, here's a better idea that will save you more, take your budget for replacing burned out lights and install a new retrofit LED system or retrofit all your lights and save.

Source article: WBZ.com

There are a few important facts to know about LED Technology and Incandescent lighting to fully appreciate this letter.

1. Incandescent street lights have a maximum life of 2 years and go out when they fail
2. LED Lights have an average life of 10.5 years and because they are composed of multiple LEDs they only fade when they "fail".
3. The average incandescent Street light cost $168/year in electricity
4. The Average LED Retrofit costs about $21/year in electricity
5. Insects are not attracted to LED


To Public Works commissioner Lenny Laakso and the people of Fitchburg.

I understand where Mr. Laakso is coming from. The cost of operating street lights is a killer on the budget, and aside from the debatable issue of safety, its a no brainer if the question comes down to keeping schools open or street lights lit.

But a newly patented technology may just solve the problem for you without shutting down 60% of your lights, there may even be some stimulus funds available for installing them.

Recently Best LEDLighting has applied for a patent on a new system for retrofitting street lights. LED Street lights will cost 80-90% less than the traditional incandescent light and save an equal amount in maintenance costs.

Lets look at the numbers.

According to the WBZ.com story on March 13, 2009, the City has about 3000 lights that will be under consideration for this shutdown. They probably have more lights than this, but lets work with this number.

Every Incandescent streetlight costs an average of $168 per year to operate. On an annual basis therefor the city spends about 504,000 for these lights. In addition to this 1/2 of all incandescent street lights mist be replaced every year and the cost of replacement including the light, a bucket truck and maintenance worker averages about $250/light. For 1,500 light that about $375,000. So the total cost for keeping 3000 lights lit and maintained each year is about $879,000. That's a hefty sum.

According to the WBZ.com story turning off 60% of street lights will save about $240,000. But this savings number does not include the maintenance savings. The actual savings will probably be closer to $445,000. Of the 3000 lights, 1800 will be shut off.

If the city were to simply shut off these 1800 street lights there would be a substantial savings while they were off. At some point in the future they will simply be turned back on and the cost to the community will spike back up again. Lets imagine for the sake of argument that this happens after 3 years, so that there are 3 years of saving at $445,000 per year. In a moment you'll see why this matters.

Now let's try a different approach to the problem. Using a newly patented LED Streetlight Retrofit process, we'll look at two possible alternatives and the cost over 10 years:

1. The Zero Sum Solution
Using only the existing street light maintenance budget to convert as many street lights to LED as possible within the existing budget. This is the "Zero Sum" solution. The city realizes its anticipated savings but instead of turning off 1800 street lights the city turns off some and retrofits the others. This new LED technology is more expensive than replacing one incandescent light but it is much more affordable than any other alternative previously available, so for every 3 lights that the city budgeted for replacing, they could retrofit one streetlight with LED Technology. This means in the first year 1/3 of the lights will be retrofit and 2/3 shut off; in year 2 the second third would be retrofit and only 1/3 would remain off; in year 3 the remainder of the lights would be retrofit.

Your Plan - Turn off all 1800 Street Lights - The City's Solution
Year 1 : savings $240,000
Year 2: savings $240,000
Year 3: savings $240,000
Year 4-10: cost $240,000/year or 1.68 million
Net savings for first 3 years: $720,000
Net cost for 10 years: 1.68 million - $720,000 = - $960.000

Retrofit Option 1 - Convert 1/3 to LED each year for 3 years
Cost to operate the 1/3 LED for the entire year: $12,240 (no this is not a typo). This must be subtracted from the savings.
Year 1 : savings $228,000
Year 2: savings $216,000
Year 3: savings $203,000
Year 4-10 Cost: 37,800/year = $264,600
Net savings for first 3 years: $647,000
Net savings for 10 years: $264,600 - $720,000 = $455,000.

Summary: The 10 year cost for just shutting off light for 3 years and then turning them back on is almost 1 million dollars. If the city retrofits 1/3 of the lights at no additional cost to taxpayers there is a net savings of $455,000. All this is achieved using the maintenance budget for conversion costs.

The other approach would be for the city to borrow the full amount needed to make the conversion of the street lights (approximately 2.25 M) financed over 3 years.

2. The Green Investment Solution
Bonding a complete retrofit of all streetlights for 3 years and converting all of the lights to LED.
Year 1-3: $791.000/year (annual cost of existing lights plus maintenance: $879,000)
Year 4-10: $63,000/year or $441,000
Total cost over 10 years including all costs to retrofit: $2,814,000 compared to $8.79 Million for keeping, running and maintaining the incandescent lighting. Saving your taxpayers almost 6 million dollars. Psssst. The second decade looks even better (10 million plus) because you are not paying to retrofit the lights.

Wayne King's company, Moosewood Communications, promotes cutting edge green solutions including Best LEDLighting's LED Retrofit solution.
Learn more at their blog http://GreenerMinds.blogspot.com

Six Suggestions for a Greener Future from Brookings

If you have not yet read the piece "How Energy Efficiency Can Ensure the Green Recovery Will Leave No One Behind"

While the Stimulus package does not directly address the issues raised in this excellent piece by Charles K. Ebinger, Director, Energy Security Initiativeof the Brookings Institution, many of the items could be embraced by states and developed further for a future legislative effort.
it is well worth the short time needed.

Interestingly, item 2 relates to one of the suggestions in our series of articles beginning with the December 8, 2008 piece: "Hastening the Green Revolution with the Stimulus", specifically the piece about revolving loan funds for renewable energy.

Senator King Touts Reinvestment Side of the Stimulus on Political Chowder

Former Senator Wayne King, now President of Moosewood Communications, appeared this week on Political Chowder with Arnie Arnesen where he placed a heavy emphasis on the Reinvestment side of the Stimulus plan, particularly enhancing our position with respect to green energy and green jobs.

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Reversing Global Warming

Negative Carbon Energy System Seeks Funding for Pilot

In a small rural US community in the northern reaches of the state of New Hampshire, inventor and entrepreneur Charles Diamond of Bath, is working to develop a pilot facility using a "bio-waste-stream based " energy system that is carbon negative - that is, it uses or sequesters more carbon than it produces within the entirety of its system.

This revolutionary concept has very important implications for stemming the tide of global warming and for providing renewable, clean power in New Hampshire.

Generally speaking, most technologies and processes that have a goal of sustainability as either their central theme or one component of the entire package, have a goal of carbon neutrality as the measure of achieving some level of sustainability.

The Negative-Carbon Bio-EnergyTM concept is capable of using any form of biomass as the fuel source for a process that produces energy and a carbon based fertilizer that not only serves to sequester carbon from the biomass fuel but, when applied to land in sufficient quantity, creates an environment that will capture additional carbon from the atmosphere over time. All of this serves as the basis of energy production of the Negative-Carbon Bio-EnergyTM.




Understanding the system requires looking at it in its totality for two reasons: First, because the system has dramatic and broad capabilities for energy production. The Negative-Carbon Bio-EnergyTM system can be designed to convert bio-waste or pellets, to heat, electricity and fuel. The system can produce one or all three types of power based upon the needs of the community that will benefit from it.

Additionally, the system produces a Negative-Carbon FertilizerTM commonly referred to as biochar that has remarkable capabilities including its ability to enhance the fertility of any land to which it is applied between 200 – 400% and to act as a carbon sink.

Finally, an additional benefit of this system within the context of a Cap and Trade system would be the ability to sell carbon credits.

In a nutshell here's how the system works:

1. Using a low heat pyrolysis, stage one of Negative-Carbon Bio-EnergyTM system converts the initial (waste) fuel to its desired components: Negative-Carbon FertilizerTM.
and one or more of the three energy outputs: heat, electricity and hydrogen based bio-fuel.

A farm for example, may wish to generate all three products in order to have fuel to power its vehicles where a small village may choose only a CHP (combined heat and power) system, producing heat and electricity in addition to the Negative-Carbon FertilizerTM.

2. The Negative-Carbon FertilizerTM is then used as a soil amendment for area farmers, municipal parks, timberland, or any land chosen within the context of developing the system. It can also be developed into a marketable product, sold separately.

The Negative-Carbon FertilizerTM biochar creates a unique anaerobic environment that makes it the ideal host for microbes that feed on carbon dioxide, sequester (capture and hold) carbon and gives off oxygen. The microbial growth causes the expansion of the original area of the biochar, effectively creating a potting soil like environment where it become unnecessary to till the soil from year to year. Planting can be done by simply drawing a line in the earth into which the seeds are deposited. Ongoing research continues on use of biochar in various types of earth, but the technology on which Negative-Carbon FertilizerTM is based is thousands of years old and even today, pre-columbian soil beds are being “mined” for potting soil.

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Moosewood Communications is currently working with inventor and entrepreneur Charles Diamond of Bath, NH to develop a pilot facility using a "bio-waste-stream based " energy system. Moosewood is an Intellectual Venture Capital participant. To learn more about our "Intellectual Venture Capital" approach, click here.