A case study using the Australian dairy industry has given a team of QUT design and maths researchers the insights to develop a unique tool for measuring social, economic and environmental outcomes, contained in a newly released book.
Professor Laurie Buys from QUT's School of Design is the lead author of A Triple Bottom Line Planning Tool for Measuring Sustainability that gives organisations a tool to measure and monitor their performance on each of the three indicators and how they interact with each other.
"The Sustainability Scorecard provides rigorous, scientifically verifiable and comparable measures that organisations can use to engage government, the community and other stakeholders in tackling social, economic and environmental challenges," Professor Buys said.
"The Scorecard is a versatile tool for industry to use in decision-making in the areas of social, economic and environmental performance. It lets business see what happens when they tweak one factor to improve sustainability and how it plays out through all operations.
"Business has been reporting on the economic, environmental, and social impact of their operations for years but lacked the capacity to explore interactions among the three areas."
Professor Buys said the Sustainability Scorecard was extremely timely as organisations adapted to rapid economic, social and environmental social change and to help them report on their triple bottom line to investors, government and other agencies.
"In the dairy farming case, we looked at the impact of these factors on the farm, the factory and the market," she said.
"For instance, if a dairy farmer makes the environmental move to reduce water use it may mean they have a smaller herd, which may impact on the profitability of the business in the economic area and possibly job losses, affecting the social area."
It will also allow policy makers and stakeholders to improve their decision-making as they build sustainability into their organisations.
A Triple Bottom Line Planning Tool for Measuring Sustainability by Laurie Buys, Kerrie Mengersen, Sandra Johnson, Neil van Buuren and Evonne Miller will be launched on Friday 30 May, 3.30pm at QUT Gardens Point along with two other sustainability related books by QUT academics: Higher Education and Sustainable Development: A Model for Curriculum Renewal by Cheryl Desha and Karlson 'Charlie' Hargroves and Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities by Jodi Frawley and Iain McCalman (editors).
**High res pic of Professor Buys for media use on Flickr.
Media contact: Niki Widdowson, QUT media, 07 3138 2999 or n.widdowson@qut.edu.au.
