Although sustainability is now generally understood to be a combination of environmental, social and
economic performance, this report finds that economic sustainability is the most elusive component of the
triple bottom line approach. There is not even universal consensus that businesses should be economically
sustainable, though most concur that sustainability is desirable to prevent the devastating and inefficient
impacts of corporate premature death.
Finding out how businesses actually stay in business is a different and altogether more difficult matter. It is
the obvious case that most businesses most of the time manage their economic performance pretty
effectively – so why ask how they do it. Despite the excrescence of management handbooks purporting to
share the secrets of highly effective business people, it is also the fact that few successful business
strategists are willing to share their techniques – for obvious reasons