Triple bottom line strategy for sustainable steel industry

Abstract

The essence of sustainability lies in holding our world in trust for the future generations. The guiding concept is to view the world not as an inherited property from the forefathers rather as a borrowed property from the future generations. The `Triple Bottom Line' approach has emerged to be an essential tool to align the business strategy towards sustainability. This approach focuses on three `pillars' of sustainability: economic, environmental and social. The monitoring of the performance indicators in these three aspects helps in evaluating the efficacies of an industry's actions towards sustainability. The mammoth global steel industry is always confronted with several challenges in these three dimensions. The paper discusses the concepts of sustainability and triple bottom line approach and examines the performance of the global steel industry (represented by World Steel Association) in the respective indicators of three factors of sustainability.