Analyzing the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) in Bechtel's Sustainability Report

This content discusses the concept of Triple Bottom Line (TBL) in the context of sustainable construction practices. It highlights Bechtel's sustainability reporting, including parameters such as safe work hours, diversity, and environmental metrics like carbon footprint and intensity of CO2 emissions. The report also covers governance, commitment, and engagement, emphasizing the importance of ethics, integrity, and respect. Additionally, it discusses the challenges of making up reports and the significance of TBL in sustainable construction practices.

Running header: Triple bottom line and sustainable construction
Title: Triple bottom line and sustainable construction
Presented By:
Presented To:
Date: 10/09/2017

Triple bottom-line and sustainable construction 2
Executive Summary
The report is presented to introduce the concept of sustainable construction with emphasis to the
TB L. The report discussed to understand what makes up TBL and sustainable development. Other
elements of discussion in the report included significance of TBL in sustainable construction and
sustainable development in general. The sustainability report of Bechtel EPC Company is discussed
in the report to present the GRI elements in the report with focus on G4 guidelines. The challenges
in sustainability reporting are also suitably discussed in the report.

Triple bottom-line and sustainable construction 3
Contents
Executive Summary...............................................................................................................................2
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................4
Discussion:.............................................................................................................................................4
What is TBL?..................................................................................................................................4
Relation between TBL and sustainable construction:....................................................................5
TBL significance in Sustainable development:...............................................................................5
Significance of TBL in sustainable construction:............................................................................5
Sustainable reporting (Goel, 2010) of a multinational company using - Global reporting initiatives:. . .6
Organization..................................................................................................................................6
Organizational strateg...................................................................................................................6
Organizational Profile:...................................................................................................................6
Reporting parameters....................................................................................................................6
Governance, commitment and engagements:..............................................................................6
Management approach:................................................................................................................7
Issues in making up the reports:............................................................................................................7
Conclusion:............................................................................................................................................7
References:............................................................................................................................................8

Triple bottom-line and sustainable construction 4
Introduction
Triple bottom lines approach has evolved with an intention to augment the cause of making use of
sustainability practices in the organizations. Triple bottom lines approach proposed an accounting
system to measure the environmental and social dimensions of the organizational performance. The
key discussion of the triple bottom lines will lie along the discussion on the results of the investment
in the context of the three dimensions of planet, people and the profits. TBL accounting practices
have gathered ground in all types of operational sectors which include for profit, non-profit as well
as governmental sectors. The frame work of TBL and the evaluation of the frame work of the same
to estimate the performance in enabling sustainable construction makes up important part of the
discussion. There is also discussion provided to present the concept of TBL and its use for
organizations particularly in the construction domain (Hall, 2011, p.4).
Discussion:
What is TBL?
TBL is a framework meant for guiding the organizational consistency and commitment for
sustainability. It does have relevance in sustainable construction and the sustainable development as
well. The elements of TBL., Social, environmental and financial domains will get integrated in the
framework of TBL. TBL is often indicated with naming of three Ps, People, planet and profits. Andrew
Savitz (2013) indicated that TBL will work on estimate the organizational operation by measuring its
impact on the people, profit and the share holder’s value as well on the environmental foot print of
the operations. TBL consists in not just defining the said dimensions; rather it will attempt to
measure the proposed dimensions. Sustainability in construction industry works on to integrate
diverse stakeholders into the process. Ultimate objective of sustainability promotion in the
construction industry will consist in three main aspects, meeting the environmental challenges,
responding to the social and cultural demands and delivering the economic improvement. When all
these TBL elements are met, the organization can be said to be working with sustainability. The
ultimate objectives of the sustainable construction will be naturally to deliver long term affordability,
quality in the construction work, efficiency in the construction work as well providing value to the
clients and the users. In the same scenario, the sustainable construction is expected to decrease the
unwanted impacts on the environment. All these attempts are finally expected to increase the
economic sustainability. A comprehensive integration of numerous stakeholders like institutions
who are aware of the risks and ambiguities will provide information and necessary information to
execute the objectives etc, all will work to realize sustainable construction (Elkington, 1997, p.73).
UNEP defined sustainable construction to have the following characteristics,
Sustainable considerations and legislations should have been taken in the construction legislation
and the standards employed,
Environmental issues would have been considered both in short and long term construction of the
buildings.
Policies and the incentives available from the government to promote the sustainable construction
would have been included in the construction.

Triple bottom-line and sustainable construction 5
All stakeholders would have been informed of the sustainability regulations and they would have
considered the same in the construction practices.
Relation between TBL and sustainable construction:
Sustainable construction works on to explain how the usage of sustainable practice improvements
are applicable to the construction industry (Singh, 2009, p.285). TBL will enable the sustainable
construction occurring in the construction to meet with the broad objectives of social progress,
development of the high and stable levels of growth and employment, protecting, enhancing the
society value, using the natural resources diligently (Sitnikov,2013,P.2560). TBL will emphasizes the
three broad themes of the sustainable construction viz., environment, social and economic
accountability. TBL emphasizes the core balanced approach of the sustainable construction
(Henriques, 2013, P.2560). TBL proposes and guides the sustainable construction to be inline with a
balanced approach (Kibert, 2016).
TBL significance in Sustainable development:
Sustainable development is defined by various entities in different formats. One of the popular
definition of the same include sustainable development as a particular development process where
in the current generations can meet their requirements without actual compromising the capacity
of the future generations to meet the aspirations. TBL is a versatile tool to accomplish sustainable
development in the contemporary world. TBL enabled the expansion of the convention reporting
system to take into higher levels of social and environmental performance aspects. TBL invariably
will let the stakeholders become part of the sustainable development initiatives of the organizations.
More specifically speaking, TBL will enable the top level involvement of the organizational
management in sustainable development initiatives, it works on to implement the policy
investments in the organizational financial operations, TBL enables the programs to be developed
and executed according to the interests of the sustainable development practices, works on to sign
the voluntary standards and facilitates the enforcement of the same, Develops key principles guiding
sustainable development. Finally TBL will work a key role in reporting, makes use of the facilities in
enabling Global Reporting initiatives. Sustainable development is a wide concept and will work on
with any industry and organization in general with having interferences with the environment, social
and financial aspects (Smith, 2011, p.75).
Significance of TBL in sustainable construction:
Accountability, measurability and benchmarking of the sustainability in the construction industry are
enabled only with the use of Triple bottom line approach in the construction industry. TBL will work
on to enable all these factors of the construction industry (Singh, 2012, P.290). The 3 Ps proposed by
TBL for the construction industry does not have a common measuring unit and hence the
measurement of the same is a challenge and yet TBL enabled to measure the same (Pitt, 2009,
p.210). TBL do not have common measures proposed for calculating the relative indexing of
different factors however still the framework proposed by TBL is quite general and it will have all the
characteristics needed for different entities of the system. TBL thus making the complex measuring
operations enabled for the organization, at the same time the TBL will also versatile and is equally
applicable for both the big and small projects of the organizations equally. The impact of the
particular project will be measured irrespective of the region selected, whether it is small or big. TBL
proposed a range of economic measures, social measures and environmental measures for the

Triple bottom-line and sustainable construction 6
organization and in turn they enabled the organizational sustainability measurement, benchmarking
as well as comparison. TBL has no standardized indicators for its operations, however still the
indicators and the factors of the TBL are more flexible and can be customized for a range of
operations in general. In any case TBL is versatile and can be applied for a range of organizations
irrespective of their operational structures like govt, non-govt, profit oriented as well as non-profit-
oriented etc. In any case the proposed principles of the organization are more generalized and they
do have capabilities to meet the sustainability practice vision and mission. Broadly speaking TBL will
enable the sustainable construction to consider the accountability in the three stated P’s framework,
measure the proposals as well will work to benchmark the progression in the three P’s
framework(Bal,2013,P.697).
Sustainable reporting (Goel, 2010) of a multinational company using - Global reporting initiatives:
Organization: Bechtel is a multinational construction company committed for sustainable
development and the organization is headquartered in California. The GRI of the company is
evaluated and presented in the current report (Bechtel. n.d).
Organizational strategy: Bechtel is strategically committed to help its customers delivering its
promise and more. Bechtel works on to help the premises and will conserve all the resources, works
on to support the local communities and also is instrumental in creation of the new jobs and
improve the economies. Another key strategic element of theorganization is the fact that it is not
motivated to be the largest EPC rather determined to be the best. Typical considerations of the
company consist in anticipating the trends, aligning our expertise with the customer needs and
transform the organizational delivery and the building progress and breaking new ground and
benchmarks in every activity Bechtel undertake.
Organizational Profile: Bechtel operations are spanned in about 160 countries world wide as of now.
AS of latest statistics the company revenues are more than $38 billion per year. Total employee
strength of the company is about 58,000. Total number of the projects the company worked till
recent years is more than 25,000.
Reporting parameters: G4 GRI is employed in the report produced by the organization. Reported
parameters in the report include total recordable incident rates (TRIR) in the safety domain, total
number of incidents and comparison with the past data, Total lost time incident rate (LTIR), other
parameters in this domain include safe work hours. In social domain, diversity parameters are
reported in the sustainability reporting of Bechtel, the new chapter’s inclusion rate made up some of
the reported elements of the company. The percentage of the regional work force in each of the
financial year is reported in the reports. In economic front the sustainability report included the
reporting of procurement and contractual awards for the company. On environmental front the
organization reported carbon foot prints in terms of the percentage of Co2 emissions equivalent in
the report for each of the previous five years of its operations in global perspective. Also carbon
emissions are indicated in terms of intensity of the Co2 eq emissions per billion of USD revenues. As
part of the reporting structure the elements of the reduction shown in terms of the fall in the Co2
emissions and the rate is indicated.

Triple bottom-line and sustainable construction 7
Governance, commitment and engagements:
Bechtel management is committed to ethics and is uncompromising in collaborating on integrity,
honesty and fairness. The organization is relentless in keeping people safe from harm and
committed to provided health work environment. Excellence in the work and commitment to quality
of work makes up important aspects of the organizational commitment. Bechtel is guided by
inspiration with importance of work, challenging and developing opportunities, working to become
employer of choice. Further organization is committed to demonstrate integrity, committed to be
respectful, collaborate and working to deliver high aspirations and always look forward to learn, do
and share. Cultural tolerance and nurturing a proud legacy is the core philosophy of the
organization. Engaged to enforce environmental safety, operational safety, minimizing the carbon
foot print and working towards more environmentally friendly operational framework makes up the
organizational engagement and vision.
Management approach:
Management of the organization is committed for the organizational commitment towards
integration of the sustainability into its way of work. The key elements of the approach of the
organization consist in its commitment, that no matter whatever may be the scale of the work, the
organizational commitment will remain the same. The focus will be towards protecting the people
and the environment. Further the organization is committed to promote the local economic
development. Other important approaches of the management lie in partnering with the local
communities and societies during the projects. Typical focus areas include addressing the water
scarcity, finding new pathways to energy security as well working out to support the urbanization.
The details mentioned in the report are done in accordance with the G4 GRI guidelines of write-up.
Issues in making up the reports:
Reporting sustainability will increase with the increase in the complexity of the operations of the
organization. More complex are the organizational functionalities more complex will be
identification and reporting of the bottom lines. The key challenges lies in bringing up a bottom line
with common benchmarking as well making up a versatile measuring system for variety of factors
indicated for organizational operational framework. Further collection of the information from vast
data bases particularly for large organizations and synthesizing the same will make up a big
challenge for the organizations.
Conclusion:
3BL or TBL makes up a perfect supporting framework for sustainable development in general and for
sustainable construction industry practices in specific. The successful sustainable construction
practice needs commitment from all the stakeholders of the organization as well will requires
coherent operational plans from all corners of the organizational operational framework. The
current discussion provided an introduction and conceptual presentation of TBL in the context of
sustainable construction and finally there is exhaustive presentation of TBL significance in
sustainable construction and GRI reporting. The sample sustainability report of Bechtel Company is
also suitable discussed to emphasize the frame work of TBL as employed for sustainable
construction practices.

Triple bottom-line and sustainable construction 8
References:
Bal, M., Bryde, D., Fearon, D. and Ochieng, E., 2013. Stakeholder engagement: Achieving
sustainability in the construction sector. Sustainability, 5(2), pp.695-710.
Elkington, J., 1997. Cannibals with forks. The triple bottom line of 21st century, p.73.
Goel, P., 2010. Triple Bottom Line Reporting: An Analytical Approach for Corporate
Sustainability. Journal of Finance, Accounting & Management, 1(1).
Hall, T.J., 2011. The triple bottom line: what is it and how does it work? Indiana business
review, 86(1), p.4.
Henriques, A. and Richardson, J. eds., 2013. The triple bottom line: Does it all add up. Routledge.
Kibert, C.J., 2016. Sustainable construction: green building design and delivery. John Wiley & Sons.
Pitt, M., Tucker, M., Riley, M. and Longden, J., 2009. Towards sustainable construction: promotion
and best practices. Construction innovation, 9(2), pp.201-224.
Savitz, A., 2013. The triple bottom line: how today's best-run companies are achieving economic,
social and environmental success-and how you can too. John Wiley & Sons.
Singh, R.K., Murty, H.R., Gupta, S.K. and Dikshit, A.K., 2012. An overview of sustainability assessment
methodologies. Ecological Indicators, 15(1), pp.281-299.
Sitnikov, C.S., 2013. Triple Bottom Line. In Encyclopedia of Corporate Social Responsibility (pp. 2558-
2564). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Smith, P.A. and Sharicz, C., 2011. The shift needed for sustainability. The Learning
Organization, 18(1), pp.73-86.
Bechtel., n.d. [Online]
Available at: http://www.bechtel.com/getmedia/db4c1332-714b-4663-b3f6-876af1b06aac/2015-
bechtel-sustainability-report?ext=.pdf