Need for Triple bottom line considerations
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The industrial revolution, which began in Britain around 1760, drew heavily on the non-renewable sources such as minerals and fossil fuels. Within a space of 200 years the limits to growth powered by the industrial revolution had become visible. The urgency of finding sustainable alternatives for growth was put on the international political agenda by the publication in 1987 of 'Our Common Future', a report of the World Commission on Environment and Development chaired by the Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. The report suggested that development is sustainable where it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet our own needs." In the same year, 35 countries signed an unprecedented international agreement, the Montreal Protocol, designed to control Chloro Fluoro Carbon (CFC) emissions. In 1992 United Nations Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro. In the same year the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD) published a book 'Changing Course' noting inter alia that progress towards sustainable development makes good business sense, because it can create competitive advantages and new opportunities (Elkington, John 1998). The whole debate was encapsulated strikingly in the following words by the European Commission in 1993 :
"The serious economic and social problems the Community currently faces are the result of some fundamental inefficiencies: an 'under-use' of the quality and quantity of the labor force, combined with an 'over-use' of natural and environmental resources. The basic challenge of a new economic development model is to reverse the present negative relationship between environmental conditions and the quality of life in general, on the one hand, and economic prosperity, on the other." (Allen, Penny 2001, p...