Integrating Triple Bottom Line Thinking Into Primary Sector Strategic Planning and Resource Management

Triple Bottom Line (TBL) measuring and reporting is a useful tool for policy makers, communities and industry to capture, measure and understand the social, environmental and financial contributions made by an activity in a relatively simple and transparent manner. TBL reporting provides a focus point for industry strategic planning. This involves identifying possible future visions and scenarios for the industry to understand alternative futures, and measure and evaluate opportunities. The paper summarises the findings of the Primary Industries and Resources SA (PIRSA) ScoreCard team on the Food, Agriculture and Minerals TBL Reporting projects and demonstrates an effective tool that can be used with stakeholders to develop sustainable decision-making. In order to assist multi-criteria decision making for sustainability planning, top-ranking indicators are presented in spider diagrams across the three dimensions of social, financial and environmental criteria against alternative growth scenarios.