Evaluating the Triple Bottom Line Using Sustainable Return on Investment

A sustainable return on investment (sROI) analysis is a quantitative approach that captures the economic, environmental, and social impacts of an investment strategy in monetary terms—today and into the future. By providing a broader accounting of the benefits and costs, sROI provides a framework for optimal decision making. sROI is a nonproprietary methodology based on economic principles and includes an uncertainty analysis to demonstrate the likelihood of realizing costs and benefits. This approach provides a more comprehensive picture of projects and supports the selection of investment strategies that are defensible and transparent. sROI can provide the framework and metrics for the evaluation and selection of remediation projects. A demonstration study of a DuPont remediation project illustrates the process and outcome of an sROI analysis. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.