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WHEN IT COMES to defining sustainability, experts and advocates are quick to rely on that sturdiest of metaphors: the "three-legged stool," reflecting the concept's environmental, economic, and social components. If only it were that simple.

"Three strands of a braid may be a better metaphor," says Janet Hammer (left), director of the Social Equity and Opportunity Forum in PSU's College of Urban and Public Affairs. She suggests the braid analogy more accurately reflects the entwined, systems nature of the concept.

Indeed, sustainability is complex, evolving, and suddenly on the tip of everyone's tongue. It's no wonder that PSU researchers and professors have found ready audiences for their work to define and develop models of sustainability in practice. And their audiences are not just students and academics, but also businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies anxious to "green up" their organizations, but unsure how to go about it.

"It's often equated with environmentalism, but really sustainability is about solutions that take a more integrated approach," says Jennifer Allen, interim director of PSU's Center for Sustainable Processes and Practices. "You can't just take the ecological, social, engineering, or economic perspective—you need to bring those multiple views together."

There's another driving factor behind all this talk about sustainability, of course, with several zeros attached. That would be the recent pledge of $25 million over the next decade by the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation--a gift that requires an additional $25 million match by PSU—to support the University's efforts in sustainability.

Naturally, that's prompting even more faculty to consider, "'How does my work relate to sustainability?'" That's a good thing, says Allen. "It catalyzes broader thinking about research opportunities and creates opportunities to find connections they wouldn't have otherwise."

JUST A FEW YEARS AGO, business students who heard the term "sustainability" in a supply chain management course would have assumed the professor meant "fiscal sustainability." But while textbooks have yet to adapt, the classroom conversation has evolved.

Today, business practices are increasingly influenced by a growing interest in a triple bottom line approach that incorporates social and environmental considerations alongside economics. For PSU faculty members like Madeleine "Mellie" Pullman (right), Willamette Industries Professor of Supply Chain Management and Logistics, it's an opportunity to study what's working, who's changing, and why.

Country Natural Beef (formerly Oregon Country Beef) requires its member ranchers to raise beef using sustainable agriculture practices. That means no hormones, no antibiotics, open ranges, and higher costs. But by creating its own supply chain, the Country Natural Beef cooperative gets fair prices for its products, which can be found in grocery store meat departments, on the menus of fine dining establishments, and in Burgerville drive-thrus.

Adaptive business practices, coupled with consumers' growing concerns about food origin and quality and animal treatment, have proven to be a successful counter to standard industry practices for Country Natural Beef. And it's shown that there are some shared values and common ground between ranchers and urban consumers.

"They don't completely 'get' their customer base, but they're trying to understand them," says Pullman. That willingness to innovate makes the cooperative a model worth academic investigation. "They're using values as a foundation to create their structure," she says.

With other companies and economic sectors facing similar challenges—doing business in a way that is meaningful, respectful, and at some point profitable—Pullman has found much interest in her research, even as it has taken her from crunching numbers to interviewing wheat farmers and ranchers in the middle of their fields.

Meanwhile, students have been very receptive to the curriculum shift. "They expect it," says Pullman. Sustainability crops up early and often, from courses on ethics to her class on Food Industry Supply and Logistics. "We've created that culture in the business school."

SO FAR, it's the economic and environmental aspects that have "captured the attention and airtime," says PSU's Janet Hammer. Her goal at the Social Equity and Opportunity Forum is to change that, addressing sustainability's oft-neglected social dimension and its interconnectedness with economy and environment. "In the long run, you just can't have one without the other."

To people who question the relevance of social sustainability, Hammer points out pragmatic reasons to pay attention: social inequalities can spread far beyond the poverty line. Costs associated with crime, health care, and a weak workforce, for example, jeopardize the well-being of society as a whole. But it's a cause that's been slower to gain momentum, she notes, partly because we don't have effective language for social sustainability, let alone a way to measure and quantify it.

Compare this cause to the increasingly ubiquitous Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system prescribed by the U.S. Green Building Council. New buildings and even entire neighborhoods can earn LEED certification essentially by accumulating points on a checklist. While the program has its flaws and critics (who say it's too expensive, too prescriptive, and limits innovation) LEED has emerged as the de facto designation of environmentally sustainable construction.

But a true triple bottom line assessment of investment performance means looking beyond constructing "green" buildings. "Does the project benefit the people who live there?" Hammer asks. She references the Market Creek Plaza development in San Diego as a project that exemplifies that social component of sustainability.

Built on a 10-acre abandoned factory site, the project is owned in part by nearby residents of a long-impoverished neighborhood, who bought shares through the nation's first community development "initial public offering."

Residents took part in planning the development and identifying the types of businesses that the neighborhood would prefer. The result has been new jobs and job training, economic development, a grocery and other shops serving the community, public art and gathering spaces, and a renewed sense of pride replacing urban blight.

Through the Social Equity and Opportunity Forum's Social Bottom Line Project, Hammer has developed a draft framework to assess social dimensions of development investment. More than 100 leaders from business, community, development, finance, government, labor, and research sectors helped define what constitutes a "good social bottom line." Four overriding themes emerged: the investment responds to and benefits the community; fosters healthy living; strengthens the community fabric; and fairly distributes the burdens and benefits of growth.

Over the next year, Hammer and a team representing those sectors plan to refine and test the draft framework to see whether it works, and how developments in the Portland region stack up. The goal is to encourage more organizations to adopt a triple bottom line approach, with results they can measure. "We want to elevate the social dimension of sustainability and reintegrate it," says Hammer. "The bottom line is: Are we building healthy communities?"

J. David Santen, Jr., is the director of communications for sustainability initiatives at Portland State.