A Framework for Sustainable Value Creation in Venture Capital

As sustainability becomes a foundational element of investment strategy, fund managers face a growing need to move beyond ESG compliance and green intentions. It is no longer enough to mitigate harm—we must actively create value across economy, environment, and society. This article explores how the science-based framework of Triple Top Line (TTL) provides a powerful, practical method for achieving that goal.

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) metrics have become mainstream. They help investors avoid risk, assess compliance, and screen out problematic business models. However, ESG focuses on the past and the present, overlooking future opportunities for value creation. For early-stage companies—where innovation, transformation, and long-term impact are central—this approach falls short. We need a sustainability lens built for growth and change.

Developed by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, the Triple Top Line is a design framework that redefines how businesses create value. Rather than balancing trade-offs between profit, planet, and people, the Triple Top Line looks for ways to mutually reinforce all three. The core idea: economic growth, environmental sustainability, and social equity don’t have to compete—they can build on each other. This framework doesn’t trade off financial returns against environmental or social goals; it amplifies all three through integrated design and strategic focus.

How the Triple Top Line Works

The framework is often visualized as a triangle, with each corner representing one of the three pillars. The Triple Top Line analysisstarts with a simple question: Is the product or business model economically viable?

If this first gate is passed, the analysis proceeds with questions such as:

• How efficiently are resources being used?
• Does the business model embrace diversity and inclusion?
• Can it contribute to restoring ecosystems or strengthening communities?

Rather than aiming for trade-offs or balance, the Triple Top Line emphasizes interconnected value creation. Reducing waste, for instance, can not only lower costs but also strengthen customer loyalty. Diverse teams don’t just bring broader perspectives—they often deliver better financial results and more inclusive product design.

Ultimately, the Triple Top Line shifts the focus from minimizing harm to maximizing positive impact—economically, environmentally, and socially.

Translating the Triple Top Line into Venture Capital Practice

At GET Fund, we have operationalized the Triple Top Line as both a due diligence and a portfolio management tool. For our portfolio companies, it serves as a pathway to building scalable business models by integrating sustainability into their core strategy. The approach works as follows:

• We translate each of the nine Triple Top Line dimensions into one critical question, designated to address the tensions that can emerge between the dimensions. This creates a structured and consistent framework for assessing impact, across the three dimensions of economy, ecology, and social equity.

• We fully integrate the Triple Top Line into our investment decision process. During due diligence, we assess whether the business has the potential to generate value in each Triple Top Line dimension—not just avoid harm.

• In workshops led by our team, we collaboratively define specific, tangible, and strategic KPIs across the nine dimensions together with our portfolio companies, based on an analysis of their business model and sustainability drivers.
• In the next step, we establish targets that align economic outcomes with environmental and social impact.

• We link each KPI to specific UN Sustainable Development GoalsUN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to make impact measurable and globally comparable.

• We track progress and identify gaps of each portfolio company annually.
• We evaluate and compare the Triple Top Line performance across the portfolio to uncover high-impact practices, share learnings, and allocate support where it’s needed most.

Why the Triple Top Line Outperforms Conventional Approaches

Unlike ESG checklists or even some traditional impact frameworks, the Triple Top Line is forward-looking, holistic, and entrepreneur friendly. It offers a strategic approach that is both practical and actionable:

• It simplifies complexity: the Triple Top Line narrows down complexity into nine essential questions; no bloated KPI dashboards, but a sharp focus on strategically relevant indicators.
• It aligns doing the right things with doing things right: the framework connects each KPI to specific SDGs while ensuring progress is measured through clear, robust metrics.
• It’s built for action: the Triple Top Line empowers startups to move on forward, even without an in-house sustainability team—crucial especially for early-stage companies.
• It treats impact as interconnected: economic success, ecological responsibility, and social equity are not silos – they reinforce each other. Growing one dimension empowers growth in the other dimensions too.

Complementing framework for Impact Investing

The Triple Top Line doesn’t replace ESG or the Principle Adverse Impacts (PAIs) pursuant to the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR)—it enhances them:

• For Article 9 Impact Funds, the Triple Top Line helps define intentionality, ensure additionality, and support meaningful impact measurement.
• The Triple Top Line also aligns with EU Taxonomy criteria and complements tools like the Green Guide for Fund Managers and IRIS+.

The window for transformative change is now—and venture capital plays a vital role in accelerating these transformations.

Entrepreneurs today are not just creating the next generation of apps, but reshaping mobility, energy, food systems, and circular economies. They need frameworks that match their entrepreneurial ambition.

The Triple Top Line provides them with a structure without rigidity and links their strategy to impact. Accordingly, the Triple Top Line enables us as fund managers to support value creation and act as agents of genuine positive change for people and planet while scaling financially successful business models.

Impact investing isn’t philanthropy—it’s performance with purpose and measurable positive impact. Financial returns and measurable positive impact go hand in hand.

Interested in partnering with us to back businesses that grow prosperity, equity and environmental impact? Let’s talk.