What Color is the Triple Bottom Line?

I recently posted a query on Twitter and Facebook asking a simple but vexing question: "Someone committed to the environment is called an environmentalist. What do you call someone committed to sustainability?"

The answers I got were largely snarky, smug, and, ultimately, unsatisfactory. (I probably should have added a single-worded addendum: "Seriously.") Suggestions included "A good ancestor," "Idealist," "Human," "Thinker," "Educated," "Brilliant," and the like. A few folks gamely stepped up to the challenge: "Regenerative designer," "Sustainer," and "Triple bottom liner" were among their suggestions.

Someone pointed to a blog called The Sustainabilitist, which seemed to be trying to coin a meme along those lines.

As I said, all of this left a lot to be desired.

This is no mere idle noodling. Names matter. They create definitions, frameworks, images, and reference points, and are essential to the birth of movements, eras, and culture change. Can you name a significant movement, era, or cultural shift that didn't have a good name or descriptor? The media and blogosphere are famous for branding just about everything — witness the "gate" suffix appended to nearly every scandal, no matter how clumsily, since Watergate in the 1970s. Without a name, ideas rarely catch on.

Since the 1970s, we've referred to "the environmental movement" and "environmentalists." These days, the attention is shifting toward the broader arena of sustainability, which includes environmental concerns as well as social and economic ones. And while for some sustainability is used synonymously with environment, that misperception is slowly fading as activists, business leaders, thought leaders, and others help to shape the conversation away from conflating the "S"-word with the "E"-word.

"Sustainability" is, most people agree, a challenging term. Most people find it hard to define, frequently reverting to the clumsy definition of "sustainable development" set forth by the Brundtland Commission, convened by the United Nations in 1983. The commission's 1987 report, Our Common Future, made this now well-known declaration:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts:

• the concept of "needs," in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and
• the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.

That definition isn't bad, but it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. And it is only mildly helpful today, when references to sustainability (as opposed to "sustainable development") extend well beyond the "needs of the world's poor" to include (among other things) the actions and outcomes of companies, products, processes, and social systems in both developing and developed economies.

Some have boldly try to update Brundtland's definition of the sustainability (some can be found here), but none of these definitions has become widely used. (For what it's worth, I often describe sustainability as "An intergenerational Golden Rule.")

And no one has yet come up with a better word to describe attention paid to environmental, social, and economic matters. So, assuming we're stuck with the word, how do we talk about people committed to sustainability? I'd still like to know.

What about green? I regularly hear pronouncements to the effect that "Green is passé," or that "Consumers have green fatigue."

Perhaps, but that's not the whole story.

Green may be losing its mojo in the consumer marketplace, what with consumer distrust of corporate green marketing and most companies' timid, tepid marketing efforts that have turned consumers off (or never turned them on). But in the business world, green seems alive and well. There's green building of course, as mainstream an industry as any. And the field of green business seems anything but tired or passé. Indeed, it is growing rapidly, far more so than most people realize. And while some companies refer to their efforts as "citizenship," "responsibility," or, yes, "sustainability," I've yet to see any executives shudder when someone refers to their company or activities using green as an adjective to modify their activities or products. Many use it themselves.

The conversation about green versus sustainability is one that takes place regularly within the walls of my own company — which, after all, produces GreenBiz.com, the State of Green Business report, the Green Confidence Index, and many other things using the "G"-word. We debate whether that word is too limiting for our ever-growing constellation of products and services (including a forthcoming sustainability standard for business, the majority of whose attributes are non-environmental). Should we be branding ourselves more around sustainable business?

Or maybe, as I've suggested, the definition of "green" should be broadened to include nonenvironmental matters. That's been the case in politics, in both the U.S. and Europe, where "green" includes labor issues, social justice, health care, immigration, financial reform, and a host of other issues, including environmental ones. Could the same happen in business and the consumer marketplace? Could green come to mean a broader set of issues?

Creating and defining memes is hard stuff. A couple years ago, my friend and colleague Adam Werbach, now head of sustainability at Saatchi & Saatchi, made a run at shifting the color palette, with a speech and subsequent writing about "The Birth of Blue" — the emergence of a "post-green, consumer-led movement that aggregates the power of both marketers and consumers as catalysts for social change."

It was a noble attempt to broaden the conversation beyond the environment to include the social aspects of social change — that is, what many people refer to as "sustainability." But I haven't heard many people talking lately about blue.

That leaves me where I started: What should we call those who believe in the importance of addressing the full spectrum of environmental and social issues in transforming companies, consumers, and markets? Are we "sustainabilists," "sustainers," or something else?

And I repeat my original question: "What do you call someone committed to sustainability?" I'd really like your thoughts. Seriously.

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Comments

[Ken Stokes]

Maybe the term Donella Meadows used: sustainer

[Gonzalo]

I believe that the problem with the word “sustainability” is that its grammatical definition does not match the interpretation or expectations that people have regarding the concept of sustainability.
Let’s first analyze the definition of the word sustainability and then we’ll analyze what I believe is the people’s understanding or expectations of the same word.
Sustainability comes from the word sustain, which means constantly capable of being in a certain level. This definition implies that something is “static” or “standing still”, in other words it means that we accept the current situation or status quo. That is the fundamental problem with this word. Embedded in human nature is the desire to understand, fix, improve and optimize things (going from simple tools, to complex natural cycles, passing through the economy, ecosystems, etc, etc). Using the word sustainability to represent people that are committed to improve the planet, people, and profit is not enough. It would be the equivalent of using the word homeostasis and accept the current situation.
Now, of-course by saying this I’m not helping you to answer the question "what do you call someone committed to sustainability?" On the contrary, I’m advocating for using a different word to define people that are devoted to improve the triple bottom line. The only “logic” and “easy” answer that I can think of is one of the answers that someone already posted in your blog “Triple bottom liners”. Well maybe because we are in the U.S. and you love acronyms “TBL’s” would be a better answer.

CHEERS!!!

[Chris Oestereich]

I'll throw my hat in the ring with the term "Improvers." I like this because rather than looking to sustainability's end-point, it is an ambitious call to constantly look for ways to make things better. Do you want to provide the essential needs of the world's poor, or do you want to provide them opportunities for a better life? Do you want to sustain our ecosystems (i.e. avoid their collapse), or do you want to continually find ways to lessen our impact on them, thereby allowing them to flourish? Do we want a flat Triple Bottom Line, or do we want to point towards untold heights? Improvers will look to create the proverbial rising tide which carries all boats.

[Frances Zolotar]

I am submitting the word "environmentalist".

It's long, but it says it all, doesn't it??

[F. Zolotar]

How about: E-cologist ???

[betty jo]

I'd submit Sustainist. I'm sure someone already suggested this term. I'd disagree with an earlier comment regarding sustainability to mean status quo, since i think a never ending chain of change is required to keep 'things' status quo. Sustainability has become popular in its use along side environmental and has always conjured up an image of life style for me. Sustainability to me also means support -- whether that support be of the life style nature (economic, health, etc) or the eco-type (environmental, green, reduction and so on). I'm okay with the terms sustain, sustainability, sustainist. They already mean something to me that extends beyond just the environment.

[Louise Rubacky]

Golden Rule Futurists- plays off your apt description of sustainability, and redefines futurist in a non-wonky way.

[Woody Raine]

I suggest "Envisionary," though Googling indicates it may have other meanings already.

[Sophie Constance]

How about SEEC-er or SEEC -ist
The interconnection of S E E AND C is all part of holistic Sustainability.

As In Social
Environmental
Economic
Cultural ( Including Governance)*

* Depending on which sector you are in.

From acronymns not words that are too simplistic or reductionist at least it's comprehensive. :)

[Josh Stack]

I'd consider one focused on "sustainability" to be well-intentioned but misguided.

The Brundtland Commission definition falls short as well.

Ken, posting above, put it well. The core meaning and word, "sustain", has been well-defined since at least Middle English.

It's something altogether novel we're seeking to define. And I agree, Joel, until we appreciate the true power of definitions, we will continue to collectively fall short.

[Nancy Darcy Gallant]

One thing that's a positive is the fact that "green" folks are realizing that it isn't enough to help the environment as the most basic tenet of the green movement. It's about people, too. After all, economic systems and the very real communities (flesh, blood, earth, plants, water), if you will, to which they are tied should be sustainable just as an ecosystem in nature is, lest it whither and die (a bit dramatic, but not untrue). Sustainability is a more all-encompassing term. I like it. It really is/should be about the triple-bottom-line these days in terms of conscious capitalism to lead the country to a brighter future for all stakeholders.

I've taken to using the terms people-friendly and earth-friendly to describe the different aspects of my social enterprise start-up, which, by the way, is designed to (ultimately) be financially self-sustaining rather than grant dependant. I could go on (even more!), but too much to do to make my vision a reality and too many other great replies for your readers to peruse. Really great post and love the comments as well.

Carpe Diem ~

Nancy Darcy Gallant
Social Entrepreneur
Found/Time Well Spent
An Eco-Arts & Creative Repurposing Community Enrichment Center
Twitter ~ @NancyTWS
Facebook ~ http://www.Facebook.com/TimeWellSpent