<P> The triple bottom line (or otherwise noted as TBL or 3BL) is an accounting framework with three parts: social, environmental (or ecological) and financial . Some organizations have adopted the TBL framework to evaluate their performance in a broader perspective to create greater business value . Business writer John Elkington claims to have coined the phrase in 1994 . </P> <P> In traditional business accounting and common usage, the "bottom line" refers to either the "profit" or "loss", which is usually recorded at the very bottom line on a statement of revenue and expenses . Over the last 50 years, environmentalists and social justice advocates have struggled to bring a broader definition of bottom line into public consciousness by introducing full cost accounting . For example, if a corporation shows a monetary profit, but their asbestos mine causes thousands of deaths from asbestosis, and their copper mine pollutes a river, and the government ends up spending taxpayer money on health care and river clean - up, how do we perform a full societal cost benefit analysis? The triple bottom line adds two more "bottom lines": social and environmental (ecological) concerns . With the ratification of the United Nations and ICLEI TBL standard for urban and community accounting in early 2007, this became the dominant approach to public sector full cost accounting . Similar UN standards apply to natural capital and human capital measurement to assist in measurements required by TBL, e.g. the EcoBudget standard for reporting ecological footprint . Use of the TBL is fairly widespread in South African media, as found in a 1990--2008 study of worldwide national newspapers . </P>

Who came up with the triple bottom line