Category: Collaboration Zones

The triple bottom line — people, profits, planet — is a recent business concept.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bottom_line. We are now facing major issues on all three:

1.  People.  The safety of people is threatened by a)  vulnerable cyber infrastructure.  See the National Geographic video American Blackout; and b) inequality leading to lower standards of living for the middle class.  See the recent books by Hedrick Smith, Joseph Stiglitz, and Jeffrey Sachs.

2.  Profits.  See the various films and books on the financial crisis.  For example, in the book Thirteen Bankers Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF, and James Kwak say that “too big to fail is too big.”  Yet the banks are getting bigger and they have great influence in writing the laws on banking regulation.

3.  Planet.  I had heard that sea level might rise by 3 feet by the end of the century.  The National Geographic program Earth Under Water suggests perhaps as much as 16 feet in 100 years and another 16 feet in the next 100 years.  See .

These numbers may be high.  However, what actions should we be taking in order to minimize the problem and to prepare for whatever sea level rise occurs?

I think systems science, and reflexivity theory, would be helpful in understanding these phenomena.

Continue reading “Stuart Umpleby: The Triple Bottom Line & Current Challenges”