Page 44 - Social Enterprise A New Business Paradigm for Thailand

2. Specificity – clear and measurable benefits the company expects to gain.
3. Proactivity – anticipation and timely response to emerging social trends.

4. Voluntarism – a firm’s freedom to choose its social agenda without external compulsion.
5. Visibility – outcomes that are prominent, recognizable, and valued by stakeholders.

These criteria positioned CSR not merely as a philanthropic gesture, but as a deliberate strategy
for creating shared value, integrating societal impact with competitive advantage.

Another key conceptual advancement was the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework. Traditionally,
the “bottom line” referred to net profit, the final line in a financial statement and the primary
measure of business success. This profit-centric view had dominated accounting since the 15th
century, when Luca Pacioli first articulated the principles of double-entry bookkeeping (Elkington,
2018).

In 1994, British entrepreneur and author John Elkington introduced the Triple Bottom Line as a
challenge to this one-dimensional view of business performance. In his later work, Green Swans:
The Coming Boom in Regenerative Capitalism (2020), Elkington elaborated on the idea, arguing
that the future of business must integrate three Ps: profit, people, and planet. This approach
called on the private sector to take responsibility for its broader impact on society and the
environment, not just its financial gains.

Over time, the Triple Bottom Line has evolved into a foundational element of CSR, Environmental

and Social Governance (ESG), and other global corporate accountability frameworks. It has been
embedded into standards and reporting systems such as:

• The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), which provides comprehensive guidelines for
sustainability disclosures.
• The Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), which ranks companies based on their
environmental and social performance.
• And various impact measurement tools, including:

o Social Return on Investment (SROI), which monetizes the social value generated by a
business;

o Benefit Sharing models, which emphasize equitable distribution of value among
stakeholders.

These tools and frameworks have been adopted by large corporations, international institutions,
and investors to assess a company's overall contribution to sustainable development. Together,
they reflect a growing consensus that modern businesses must go beyond legal compliance and
profit generation. They must actively demonstrate responsibility, transparency, and innovation in
their pursuit of value, contributing not only to shareholder wealth, but also to societal well-being
and ecological resilience.

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