Whole Foods Market: The Triple Bottom Line

Businesses have been playing a crucial role in people’s lives. No matter what they go or what the occupations they are; people are drawn to get involved in businesses. However, behind the scenes of the business thriving, the environment is deteriorated each day. Many development schemes are come up with the plan related with the depletion of the environment (Shah, 2002). Because of people and environmental damages, attentions were drawn to corporations for ensuring their sustainabilities. John Elkington designed a framework called Triple Bottom Line(TBL) (cite), which allows employees or entrepreneurs to adopt it for evaluating their performances regarding three dimensions people, planet, and profit. Starbucks is one of successful corporations which uses the Triple Bottom Line. The underlying Starbucks’s policy is to "inspire and nurture the human spirit-- one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time" ( Herbeck, 2012). The statement which was previously mentioned shows that Starbucks does not solely concentrate upon their profits, but their stakeholders’ well beings and the environment as well. This firm tries to launch many campaigns based on the three factors of the Triple Bottom Line. As a result, when it comes to Triple Bottom Line framework, Starbucks was given the opportunity to appraise and monitor its operations.

Introduction Sustainability has been mentioned as a goal of businesses. During the mid 1990s John Elkington created the triple bottom line plan under the concept of sustainability. Sustainability can be defined in many ways, but the simplest way is “Ability to sustain” (Sustainability, 2010). The triple bottom line is an accounting framework, and there are three dimensions of sustainability among them people, planet and profit (3Ps). The concept of TBL is to measure the profitable, social and environmental performance of the company.

According to Fleming (2012), the company is increasing its long term business prospects which may aid its customers to gain social and economic goal. It is identified that the company has looked up its competitive benefit and examine its philanthropy efforts by the most effective way. According to Geppert et.al (2014), this means company is socially responsible and associated to environmental practice which can also lead to a strong customer and sales loyalty. This may enhance the productivity and quality of the company’s product which retain and attract its workers in order to reduce the regulatory

In this highly competitive world, money is one of the most significant factors for people to survive because people use money to satisfy their desires such as clothes, food, and medicines. A company will gain profit from the amount of money that people used, but only profit cannot make company to be sustainable. Hence, every corporation should be concerned about the triple bottom lines which can lead company to be sustainable. The Triple Bottom line or TBL was created by the founder of British consultancy called sustainability, John Elkington since 1994 (economist, 2009). The triple bottom line is separately in three categories, including profit, planet, and people.

Whole Foods Market can experience cannibalization from their 365 stores and their own Whole Foods Market stores. Currently, Whole Foods Market has opened three locations in California, Oregon, and Washington of their 365 stores. Additionally, the Whole Foods Market plans to open sixteen locations in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. Additionally, 365 stores offers a different experience, with an aim in targeting to younger customer. Stores are tech friendly, there are iPads all over the store that customers can use to order to go food items or scan product labels to read reviews. Cannibalization can also occur because many cities have a high number of Whole Foods stores. In Houston, Texas there are approximately

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION Whole Foods Market was created as a grocery store to serve as providing healthier options for consumers (Whole Foods Market History, 2016). Whole Foods has recently begun a target of the younger demographic, such as millennial that are increasingly becoming more concerned with the food they are putting in their bodies (Low, 2015). However, there is a large shift happening within the retail industry, including grocers concerning consumer behavior (Lewis & Dart, 2010). The problem Whole Foods is having though is the lack of adaption they are having to the changing society. Having a younger demographic with such high price and quality items is causing a disconnection with consumers and brand loyalty.

Key Trends – Globalisation One of the main opportunities Costco has is more global expansion to specific targeted countries. Although operating in many countries, Costco is heavily dependent on the U.S. and Canadian markets. It still has the opportunity to expand into the Asian and Australian markets where it has a limited presence. Costco has the capability to operate about 100 stores in Taiwan, Korea and Japan combined and about 20 stores in Australia. It currently has 41 stores in Taiwan, Korea and Japan combined and 6 stores in Australia.

In the infamous prose “Attention Whole Foods Shoppers” Robert Paarlberg, a Harvard international affairs expert divulges on the ongoing warfare with the issue of sustainability. Paarlberg focuses on how the rise in global starvation increases in less developed nations, but it is often ignored by those in developed countries because of their fixation with the green revolution. He asserts many claims as to why Africa and Asia still have high food deprivation rates, which quite contrary to popular belief has nothing to do with overpopulation. This stems from lack of investment into agricultural infrastructure and investments. His criticism of whole foods shoppers seeks to bring awareness to the issue of world hunger and how the quest to eat organically

In all Trader Joe’s is one of the leading super markets in the U.S., but after careful analysis of their operations I believe there are opportunities that are currently being ignored by the company. The company doesn’t need to act on all the recommendations that I made, however it would be in their best interest to do so. Not only would the company grow at a faster pace, but it will make strides in areas that haven’t been occupied before. Despite these current pitfalls, Trader Joe’s still is a popular option in their

Furthermore, Whole Foods social responsibility reflects their idea to alter the world. With Whole Foods targeting

Two college dropouts borrowed money from family and friends to open a small business called Saferway in Texas. This occurred in 1978 by John Mackey and Renee Lawson (Hardy). In 1980 the two joined forces with Craig Weller and Mark Skiles and created Whole Foods Market. Seven months later Texas got hit with the worst flood in history.

positive change to the people it serves as they encourage their green initiatives, to support and share fresh ideas and unique perspectives by hiring different kinds of people, cultures, and abilities (Publix, 2014). Moreover, Publix continues to thrive as they continue to serve a wide variety of customers, support a diverse community that provide the right product in the right store location, while continuing to purchase products from mainstream and diverse vendors and suppliers (Publix, 2014). Rhode (2006), states that organizations like Publix Supermarket, Inc could be more inclusive in their philanthropic giving by increasing self-awareness of intrinsic problems towards their mode of social problem solving (p.263).

In the article Accountants Save the World by Peter Bakker, one of his casual claims is that “to address current economic crises in a systematic way, we must begin to demand a return on social and natural capital as well. ”1 As a result, Bakker felt that shareholders would not recognize a company's' social accomplishments if it is not captured in financial reports. However, it could be that shareholders do not put social capital into financial statements because they believe that the only social responsibility of business is profits, like Milton Friedman. Therefore, demanding a return on social and natural capital would be ineffective if the majority of shareholders agree with Friedman's view.

Summary: Antitrust concerns have been raised after Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. Democrats in particular have asked how the purchase may affect consumers who have limited food shopping options -- antitrust concerns are part of their political agenda. Whole Foods is expecting to close the deal during the second half of 2017 and many analysts speak of benefits that would come from this deal such as lower prices and delivery innovations; they also state that Amazon would still face competition from other major retailers such as Target and Walmart. The concerns have mainly stemmed from the various effects of consolidating other U.S. businesses such as airlines and banking. Amazon is planning on resubmitting paperwork to the

From Milton Friedman’s view, maximizing profit is the only focus of any business corporation, so long as it does not violate the state’s laws and the fundamental rules of society. Most firms are disposed to agree the above statement, thinking that business as a whole should not perform social responsibility at a cost of shareholders ('Shareholder value or social responsibility?', 2007). However, the case of ‘Brent Spar’ revealed the failure of corporate social responsibilities, showed that complying with the legislative requirements is insufficient from the view of the