Sustainability & triple bottom line

SUSTAINABLE ENERGY STRATEGY

 click here to view Sustainable Energy Strategy (1.51Mb)

TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE DECISION MAKING

Triple Bottom Line is a process of decision-making which contributes to sustainability across Council by considering social, environmental, and economic factors equally. In 2004, Council resolved to introduce Triple Bottom Line Decision Making into Council operations. TBL is currently a key initiative within Council's Management Plan.

Rationale

Acting as a guide towards sustainable business practices, TBL is a means of making operational the goals and values of an organisation. At Hornsby Shire Council, we use TBL to set our agenda for a continual improvement in the quality of life. It provides a means of consolidating existing ad-hoc approaches to comprehensively address the core functions and outcomes of council and demonstrate to the community council’s commitment to achieving sustainability.

TBL at its narrowest is a framework for measuring and reporting corporate performance against economic, social and environmental parameters. In effect, TBL is a planning and reporting mechanism, and decision-making framework used to achieve sustainable outcomes.

The benefits of a TBL framework are:

Governance and Sustainability

TBL is the tool supporting council’s shift toward sustainability. Imperative to this shift is acknowledging the role of governance as an essential precondition to sustainability. Governance is 'the process by which we collectively solve problems and meet our society’s needs - government is the instrument that we use' (Osborne and Gaebler 1993). Doing it well involves competent management of community resources and affairs in a manner that is open, transparent, accountable, equitable and responsive to people’s needs (Australian Government 2004). To achieve better local governance across council, Hornsby Shire Council aims to treat its constituents as citizens in addition to simply customers of services. We will do this by exercising local community leadership and fostering sound public judgement – informed and thoughtful debate within the community. We will also build the human and social capital of their communities whilst managing financial and physical assets.

Sustainability and governance are strongly interrelated. Both involve strong aspects of community participation in decision making, an essential element of TBL. It is important in Hornsby Shire Council’s approach to sustainability that TBL decision making processes create an environment in which all stakeholders can become involved in the planning and management of their communities. It requires an emphasis on open, deliberative approaches to decision-making. Secondly, governance and sustainability are both seen as both a process and a goal. Both utilise principles and mechanisms to achieve good outcomes. And both require a system of planning, monitoring, reporting and reviewing to ensure the actions and improvements required to achieve these outcomes continue to be implemented.

The TBL Tool

Hornsby Shire Council has lent from the City of Melbourne and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) who developed a TBL toolkit. The toolkit is an expression of the TBL concept and it is a practical manifestation of tools that are meaningful at the local level. Encompassing key decision making points, it makes transparent the implications of decisions and enables council to plan effectively and determine the most appropriate actions. The tools evaluate proposals going before council, decisions to approve capital works projects, and demonstrate a process to integrate TBL into corporate planning. It is the building blocks of a structure so that the principles of TBL become embedded into council processes. The TBL Tool consists of three primary documents:

• The Business Paper Assessment, which determines which types of business papers require a TBL assessment;
• The TBL checklist, which assists staff in preparing their TBL summary; and
• The TBL explanatory notes, which assists staff in deciphering the TBL checklist through definitions and relating questions to associated policy.

A series of training workshops have been conducted with Councillors, Executive Managers, Branch Mangers and Officers responsible for report writing. Between August 2005 and February 2006 over 80 staff members have participated in the training. It is anticipated that from April 2006, all council business papers requiring a TBL assessment will have a TBL summary included.