Quote of the Week
“Movement toward corporate concern for the ‘triple bottom line’ – financial, social, and environmental performance – requires radical change throughout the corporation. It is not ‘either/or’. The new paradigm is ‘and also’. A sustainable business excels on the traditional scorecard of return on financial assets and shareholder and customer value creation. It also embraces community and stakeholder success. It holds its natural and cultural environments to be as precious as its technological portfolio and its employees’ skills.” – Charles Holliday, Stephan Schmidheiny and Philip Watts, Walking the Talk: The Business Case for Sustainable Development
July 4th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Great quote and great thoughts.
That said, ‘triple bottom line’ is all well and good, but it makes civic tourism a tool of the accountants, rather than that of entrepreneurs and innovators. Why not call it a hat trick?
July 4th, 2006 at 10:58 am
Ha, I fear the “hat trick” metaphor would be lost on our many non-cricket or non-hockey communities. That said, the challenge is to see the accountants as just ONE component of the triple bottom line, not the decisive voice. When we give our presentations, the economists sometimes complain that we’re de-emphasizing the financial aspects of tourism. On the contrary, we’re just trying to put things in balance. In that sense, Civic Tourism mirrors the tripartite model for democracy – government, business, civil society. When the three-legged stool gets out of balance (as it is today, with an over-emphasis on business and government), we lose. Regarding the quote from the book above, you are right: they still put too much stress on winning financially.
July 5th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
The triple bottom line leaves out one important element of sustainability – the cultural. Tourism has enormous impacts on cultural practice, which vary in intensity and consequence with the nature of the host community.
Interpreting cultural heritage (both tangible and intangible, historic and contemporary) requires cultural understanding and sensitivity. So does place (destination) marketing, as it creates expectations about the nature of ‘experiences’ that visitors to a place will find.
Planning, development, marketing, management, interpretation – all require integration of the four elements of sustainability.
July 5th, 2006 at 11:51 pm
Absolutely. We include culture in the social bottom line – the relationships between people and the ways they manifest themsevles: art, religion, economics, architecture, politics, etc.