Task: Sentiment Analysis
Input (English): The Bottom Line: the 3BL Fad Promises More than it Delivers . Triple bottom line (3BL) accounting promises to keep score of "people, profits, and planet" -- meaning that it enables a company to measure not only its financial results, but also its environmental, and social impact as well.     It is, to be sure, a very good idea for companies to pay attention to their impact on the environment and to the contribution they make to their community and to society at large. And in business, what gets measured gets done -- so what is not to like about triple bottom line thinking?    At one level, there is nothing not to like. It is a minor fad and a fairly low nuitrition fad at that. There is nothing wrong with the occassional bite of ice cream -- but that hardly recommends it as a diet.    There are two problems with 3BL, and this book glosses over or ignores both of them. The first problem is one of measurement. We can measure financial result with standard accounting tools. This is not pure science and as with any performance measurement system, some people cheat -- but we know what cheating is and what results we are trying to measure. Moreover, we have a common unit of currency -- money.     There is no comparable way to measure environmental or social impact. Quick example: a company that is passionate about its 3BL principles recently explained to me how they were avoiding dumping excess product into landfill by donating it to needy Africans. They proudly gave themselves environmental credit for avoided landfill and social credit for a donation. Problem is, the Africans don't want this stuff, so they dump it in their own landfills. The program is completely wasteful, but the company tells its employees and customes that it is a 3BL business.     Social and environmental accounting are in any case not new. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the SA 8000 from Social Accountability International, the AA 1000 from AccountAbility, as well as parts of various ISO standards are all efforts by international agencies or accounting firms to report non-economic aspects of company behavior. 3BL contributes nothing to this beyond packaging -- and occassionally misleading packaging at that.    Andy Savitz seems like a capable and well-meaning guy. But his book is built on a caricature of the corporation as a greedy, self-interested monolith. Unfortunately, the new thinking he brings to 3BL isn't very good -- and the good thinking isn't very new
Output (English): NEG