The triple bottom line measuring your organizations wider impact

1. The Triple Bottom Line
Measuring Your Organization's Wider Impact
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woraput
Your profits shouldn't come at the expense of people and the
planet.
Imagine going to work every day for a company that you are
truly excited about, and proud to be a part of.
Sure, the pay is decent and there's a company crèche, but those
aren't the only reasons why you love working there.
You're proud to be a part of this company because they're
honorable.
They stand out from the typical "cut-throat" business world by
the way they treat suppliers, their commitment to environmental
sustainability, their ethical investments, and their desire to
empower and promote their team members instead of dragging
them down. There is a constant air of excitement and possibility
at the office, and you love coming to work each day.
Sounds pretty amazing, right? Well, a company like this isn't
just a fantasy any more. And one approach to building a
company like this, and monitoring what it does, is to use "the
triple bottom line."
What Is the Triple Bottom Line?
The triple bottom line was first fully explained by John
Elkington in his 1999 book, "Cannibals With Forks: The Triple
Bottom Line of 21st Century Business." It's a bottom line that
continues to measure profits, but also measures the
organization's impact on people and on the planet. The triple
bottom line is a way of expressing a company's impact and
sustainability on both a local and a global scale.
The concept behind the triple bottom line is that companies are
responsible first and foremost to all their stakeholders, and
these include everyone that is involved with the company

2. whether directly or indirectly, as well as the planet we're all
living on. This approach sees shareholders as part of the
stakeholder group, but only as part of it.
At first, this approach can seem naïve. However, a number of
important trends support the need for organizations to be
benevolent, at least to some extent:
· Many organizations are critically dependent for success on
hiring, motivating and retaining good people. At the extreme,
think of leading sports teams or media organizations, in which
the people earning big money are the stars, not the shareholders.
These organizations have no option but to be focused on their
people.
· In many parts of the world, particularly in certain industries,
good people are in short supply. Baby Boomers are moving out
of the workplace into retirement, and there are fewer people in
the following generations. Organizations that don't look after
their workforces will quickly find they can't attract and retain
the people they need.
· Different generations have different attitudes to work. While
earlier generations may have tolerated impoverished conditions
at work, people in generations X and Y are likely to be looking
for more meaning. Unless they find this meaning, they'll move
on.
· Consumers and potential recruits have many more choices than
they had in the past, and are more aware of the ethical and
environmental stance of large companies. Some base their
purchase and career decisions on these things.
The Three Ps of the Triple Bottom Line
So, let's look at the three bottom lines – People, Planet and
Profit – in more detail.
People
Companies that follow the triple bottom line way of doing
business think about the impact their actions have on all the
people involved with them. This can include everybody from
farmers supplying raw materials, on up to the CEO of the
company. Everyone's well-being is taken into consideration.

3. The company offers health care, good working hours, a healthy,
safe place to work, opportunities for advancement and
education, and does not exploit their labor force (by using child
labor or offering sweatshop wages). In some cases, the "people"
bottom line can also include the community where the company
does business.
While the concept of the people bottom line is certainly
attractive, the difficulty comes in deciding how far you go with
this. Do you apply it to employees? Their families? Suppliers?
People near company buildings? How near? And what should
you do if you need to restructure the business to remain
competitive and shed some staff? Should your concern for
people mean that you refuse to make redundancies even though
this risks the long term viability of the organization for all
staff?
Planet
Triple bottom line companies take pains to reduce or eliminate
their ecological footprint. They strive for sustainability,
recognizing the fact that "going green" may be more profitable
in the long run. But it's not just about the money. Triple bottom
line companies look at the entire life cycle of their actions and
try to determine the true cost of what they're doing in regards to
the environment. They take pains to reduce their energy usage,
they dispose of any toxic waste in a safe way, they try to use
renewable energy sources and they don't produce products that
are unsafe or unhealthy for people and the planet.
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Profit
The financial bottom line is the one that all companies share,
whether they're using the triple bottom line or not. When
looking at profit from a triple bottom line standpoint, the idea is
that profits will help empower and sustain the community as a

4. whole, and not just flow to the CEO and shareholders.
The Triple Bottom Line in Practice
While you may or may not consider the Triple Bottom Line
appropriate for your business, it makes sense to recognize the
way in which the workplace is changing, and consider whether
you need to adapt your approach to business to reflect this.
If you decide to explore the concept further, start out by
researching what other companies are doing to make a positive
change in the way they do business. Looking at the steps they've
taken will save you time brainstorming on ways to improve your
own business. Some examples from different industries include:
· An international shipment and packaging company has taken
drastic steps to reduce its ecological footprint, and currently has
about 30 percent of its stores using renewable energy.
· An ice cream business has set a goal to reduce its carbon
dioxide emissions by 10 percent over the next few years. It also
has started investigating more environmentally friendly ways to
package its ice cream, and plans to cut waste by at least 1,000
tons.
· A coffee company only buys its beans from farmers who grow
coffee in an environmentally friendly manner, and it takes pains
to ensure that all its workers are treated fairly, and receive a
living wage for their skills.
· A computer company focuses a lot of its community efforts
towards training and education programs. It helps
underprivileged kids by giving them access to technology, and
has goals to recycle 60 percent of its annual waste.
By taking the time to start using the triple bottom line approach,
you might be surprised at just how positive the reaction will be
from your colleagues and your customers.
When to Use the Triple Bottom Line
The Triple Bottom Line is essentially a reporting system. Of
itself, it doesn't actually improve the company's impact on
people or the environment, any more than the action of
producing a set of management accounts would affect profits.
However, it can be used to drive improvements in the way an

5. organization impacts people and the environment by helping
managers focus on what they need to do to improve all of the
bottom lines, and keeping this work high on their agendas. In
this case, the Triple Bottom Line is being used as a type
of Balanced Scorecard .
As with all measurement systems, though, the cost of
monitoring and calculating three bottom lines can be
considerable. And you can only justify this cost if you can do
some greater good as a result of having the figures. What's
more, you certainly don't have to have Triple Bottom Line
reporting in place to treat people well, or be conscientious about
your impact on the environment. In many cases, money that
could be spent on monitoring the Triple Bottom Line could
better be used on people- or planet-friendly initiatives.
Tip:
This also needs to be considered in the context of monitoring
and managing the organization's progress towards achieving
its Critical Success Factors .
Key Points
The Triple Bottom Line is a way of measuring an organization's
impact on people and the environment as well as its finances.
Some companies find that using it to monitor more than just the
financial line helps them improve the way that they treat people
both within and outside the organization, and reduce their
adverse impact on the environment.
BUSINESS PLAN-TOPMARK CAFE
1
BUSINESS PLAN-TOPMARK CAFE
4
Business Plan.

6. Student's Name
Institution of Affiliation
Class
Date
Business Plan.
Products or services offered
Topmark Café is a catering business that operates under the
food catering and beverages industry, located in the heart of
Applewood Mott Estate, Vienna, VA. The name "Topmark
Café" has a huge significance in attracting customers to its
premises because it denotes that they offer high and top-notch
services that match with the best quality when it comes to their
services, including their food. The food catering and beverages
industry is very competitive. For Topmark Café to continue
enjoying a monopoly in the area, they have to maintain very
high-quality standards in terms of services offered and maintain
a great sense of hygiene factors, which is key in avoiding
stomach infections from clients' poor hygiene. The Café
currently offers assorted snacks, including hot and cold coffee
beverages, pastries and desserts, cookies, coffee cakes, and
muffins. The Topmark cafe menu will include other snacks such
as sugarless biscuits, brown bread, ice sugar cakes, other non-
alcoholic drinks, and beverages such as soft drinks will be
included in the café menu. With time they will be able to
expand to lunch and dinner items when the café expands.
Revised mission statement
The Topmark cafe will revise the mission statement based on

7. the following criteria; a range of products or services offered,
quality, price, service, overall relationship to the customer, and
management style or relationship to employees. The mission
statement will be as "Topmark Café is a catering business that
will provide assorted snacks of high-quality standards that
maintain affordable customer-friendly prices. Provision of
quality fair services will be accorded to the customer by
maintaining a strong business-customer relationship rapport and
a great democratic relationship workforce interaction between
the management and employees."
Trends in the market industry
Topmark Café needs to adopt the recent trends in this sector to
increase its efficiency. The food and catering industry has been
growing at a fast rate. The market is supposed to recover at a
compound annual growth rate of 6.2% from 2019 and reach
$708.35 billion in 2025, especially on snacks that have evolved
due to customers' changing wants and needs (Grasso, 2020).
There have been trends and developments such as tamper-
evident packaging materials. It is sealed once an order is sent
for delivery, and this seal will ensure food is not contaminated
or infected. It will also alert a customer whether their order's
packaging has tampered with through a clear opening. Cashier
shields have been developed to minimize contact between
cashier and customer towards maintaining social distance and
hence reduce the chance of respiratory disease infections such
as Covid-19 that is deadly currently, especially at the point of
sale services. Clear markings should be done for a customer to
know about where to stand when making or picking an order to
avoid congestion in the whole premises. Cafes and coffee shops
need to establish single-serving packaged meals, which is quite
convenient for potential customers. Most customers are
comfortable taking away options as they save a lot of time in
due course compared to dining on the premises. There has also
been the development of ghost kitchens, which lowers the cost
of rent, and therefore, the cost of food in the menu becomes
lower and affordable to the potential customers. Topmark café

8. can utilize in the future expansion of its business while
expanding its branches to retain their lower prices (Arenas -Jal,
2020).
Strategic positioning
Topmark Café has a greater strategic position in terms of its
advantage currently as a monopoly in the food catering
industry. Their biggest competitive edge is offering high-quality
services and factoring in the health needs concerns in preparing
their foodstuffs with a lower price in their menu list. It is
centered at the heart of Applewood Mott Estate, Vienna, VA. It
serves the students learning in the nearby institutions and
employees working and living in the area; hence, they have a
wide customer base. The snacks they will be providing will only
be sourced from their café, which will be the only one in that
locality, and thus the huge demand will be overwhelming to
Topmark Café. The customer perspective factors are the key
tool in setting up strategic positions in the market whereby all
the needs and wants of each potential customer is met. Topmark
Café offers a wide range of products by taking into
consideration health concerns. It will be a big selling point in
their business because the majority of the population currently
are cautious about their health conditions, and offering low
prices in their menu will be an edge over their potential future
competitors in the market.
Distribution channels and their rationale
Topmark Café will also need to design its distribution channel
to be less expensive to maintain lower costs on their products.
The distribution channels can be through direct sales,
distributors, and the internet. As a café, which its target
customers are within reach, direct sales will be necessary, but
they will utilize distributors as they grow more branches. The
distribution channels should be accessible to customers, direct
sales force for complex deliveries to ensure companies'
satisfaction. Also, the café should be having control over its
distribution channel to avoid misinformation about its products.

9. The channel should also be made in the restaurant or sports
venues whenever there are orders. The online model will be
quite effective, and offering a subscription will effectively
maintain customer loyalty. The potential customer can order
snacks from the comfort of your phone (Zhang,2016).
Revised SWOT analysis
The SWOT analysis matrix of Topmark Cafe' will be revised
based on the opportunities of Topmark Café concerning the
external factors. The business trends and expansion will be a
great advantage because it will lead to better and quality
services to their customers. Establishing online platforms will
enable customers to order their products; hence it will be the
most efficient method to boost sales.
In conclusion, Topmark Café will propel more prosperity due to
the improvement and sophistication of their processes and
services, customer satisfaction based on the quality of snacks
and beverage drinks that they offer. The utilization of modern
trends will be more effective such as tampering seals will
ensure food safety and minimize complaints resulting from
infections.
References
Arenas-Jal, M., Suñé-Negre, J. M., Pérez-Lozano, P., & García-
Montoya, E. (2020). Trends in the food and sports nutrition
industry: A review. Critical reviews in food science and
nutrition, 60(14), 2405-2421.
Grasso, S. (2020). Extruded snacks from industrial by-products:
A review. Trends in Food Science & Technology.
Zhang, S., Lee, C. K. M., Wu, K., & Choy, K. L. (2016). Multi-
objective optimization for sustainable supply chain network

10. design considering multiple distribution channels. Expert
Systems with Applications, 65, 87-99.