The quadruple bottom line

Four outcomes, not one

• The standard defines sustainable as an ongoing focus on economic, social, cultural (including ethical) and environmental outcomes, and defines evaluate as measuring the activity's performance against them.
• The teaching guide names the analytical tool: the quadruple bottom line. A conventional business reports one bottom line — profit. A quadruple bottom line reports four, and treats them as equally real.
• This is where Māori business concepts connect directly. Many Māori businesses already operate to a multiple bottom line — pūtake, the reason for being, includes social, cultural and environmental purposes alongside profit — and kaitiakitanga, manaakitanga and purotu (accountability across generations) describe exactly what the quadruple bottom line is trying to measure.

The four outcomes, and how to measure each

• Economic.
  • The question: is the activity financially viable, and does it create value?
  • Measures: revenue, costs, gross margin, profit or surplus, cash position, break-even point, unit cost, money returned to participants or a cause.
  • This is the easiest to measure and the one students over-weight. It is one quarter of the evaluation, not all of it.
• Social.
  • The question: what has it done for people and for the community?
  • Measures: number of people employed or given experience; skills gained, recorded before and after; hours contributed to or by the community; customers served who could not previously access the product; wellbeing, measured by a survey; partnerships formed with community organisations.
• Cultural (including ethical).
  • The question: does it respect the values and identity of the people it affects, and is it run honestly?
  • Measures: consultation undertaken with the communities affected and what changed as a result; use of te reo Māori and tikanga, and whether that use was guided by the right people; where materials came from and whether the people who made them were treated fairly; honesty in claims and pricing; how the activity handled a mistake.
• Environmental.
  • The question: what has it taken from and returned to the natural world?
  • Measures: waste produced and diverted, in kilograms; packaging used, per unit; energy or fuel used; kilometres travelled; water used; materials sourced from recycled or diverted streams; anything restored or replanted.

Making the outcomes measurable

• The difference between a sound evaluation and a thorough one is almost entirely in whether the measures were set up in advance.
• For each of the four outcomes, decide before you start:
  • What exactly will be measured — a number, not a feeling
  • Where the figure comes from — sales records, a scale, a receipt, a survey, a count
  • What the starting position is — the baseline, without which no change can be shown
  • What result would count as success — set a target, so the evaluation has something to judge against
• A simple table is enough:

Outcome	Measure	Baseline	Target	Actual
Economic	Surplus after all costs	$0	$400
Social	Students trained in food handling	0	8
Cultural	Suppliers paid within 7 days	n/a	100%
Environmental	Kilograms of produce diverted from waste	0	120 kg

• (Invented activity, illustrative figures.)

The tensions between them

• The four outcomes conflict, and saying so is what turns a description into an evaluation.
  • Compostable packaging is better environmentally and costs more, which reduces the economic outcome.
  • Paying suppliers a fair price is a cultural and ethical gain and raises the unit cost.
  • Employing people who need the experience is a social gain and slows production.
  • Consulting properly takes time the activity's schedule may not have.
• A thorough evaluation names the trade-off it accepted, says why, and judges whether the exchange was worth making. A weak one reports four outcomes as if they were independent.