There are many examples of successful public-private partnerships to develop information and reporting standards. In the area of greenhouse gas emissions, a joint effort of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Resources Institute developed the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which is an accounting tool used by hundreds of private companies around the world to monitor, report on and manage emissions.

One of Central America’s largest companies — with revenues of over $570 million in 2010 in Costa Rica — voluntarily set triple bottom line standards to measure its success by not only economic but social and environmental indicators. As water conservation is a priority in that State, the company invested and changed practices to move from 12 litres of water for every litre of beverage in previous years to 4.9 litres in 2011, setting the goal of becoming water neutral by 2012. Incentives are built into the salary of the Chief Executive Officer, as some 60 per cent of it is linked to triple bottom line performance. It may have contributed to a triple win: the company achieved growth twice the industry average between 2006 and 2010.

The Carbon Disclosure Project is a platform whereby more than 3,000 organizations in some 60 countries currently measure and disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, water management and climate change strategies, helping them to set reduction targets and make performance improvements, as well as to make information available to concerned stakeholders and consumers.

Source: Greenhouse Gas Protocol (www.ghgprotocol.org); World Economic Forum, Redefining the Future of Growth: The New Sustainability Champions (2011); Carbon Disclosure Project (www.cdproject.net).