Triple Bottom-Line: A Critical Review and Need for Strategic Renewal

The concept of Triple Bottom Line (TBL), as proposed by John Elkington in 1994, is centered on three pillars of sustainability: Economic Performance, Social Performance and Environmental Performance. The TBL initially received much attention from industry and academia. Nevertheless, given the rapidly changing global corporate landscape, there is an overarching need for a more balanced and comprehensive perspective for deriving sustainable performance outcomes. Several authors, including Elkington, have identified some limitations in the current TBL framework. Keeping this in mind, this paper critically identified and evaluated the critique done by the prior researchers. In this regard, the data were collected using the Scopus database by using Boolean search terms. A systematic search of 156 studies was performed, followed by removal of duplicates, relevance screening and quality assessment to achieve 36 critically analyzed articles. These were coded and categorized to recognize gaps and suggested solutions regarding the TBL framework. Based on a critical review and literature inquiry, this research identified and discussed seven major criticisms on the TBL approach. This research recommends that if contemporary business firms ought to reap maximum value benefit, the underlying criticisms must be addressed as part of the strategic renewal of the existing TBL framework. The renewed TBL framework would consequently assist the business firms in creating, sustaining and maximizing the performance advantage for diverse organizational stakeholders.