Social Sustainability
Triple Top Line
McDonough's counter to the triple bottom line: design for positive contribution from the start, not reduced harm across three accounts.
Definition
The triple top line is a concept from William McDonough challenging the triple bottom line's accounting logic: rather than minimising negative impacts across economy, equity and ecology after design, it asks designers to generate value in all three dimensions from the top of the design process — products and systems conceived so that their very operation is beneficial (cradle to cradle: waste equals food, materials as nutrients). Fractal logic: value at every scale, not trade-offs at the bottom line.
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