Who is the report targeted at?
The report is targeted at a number of key audiences. Extension practitioners and managers will find it useful in providing a definition of triple bottom line and how it can be applied in extension programs.

People from the academic sector will find the literature review and theoretical framework of particular relevance as will those from organisations that fund extension as well as the policy sector.

Background
Recently, extension initiatives in Australia and New Zealand have aimed to deliver TBL outcomes that provide economic, environmental and social benefits. In practice, institutional providers of extension incorporate this commitment to sustainability without necessarily identifying the many stakeholders and their different ways of perceiving and defining the TBL. This lack of definition has contributed to a sense of confusion resulting in unclear outcomes and uncertain evaluations of extension outputs. As a result, funding bodies may condemn extension practice as not leading to change and land managers are often labelled as resistant to change. The lack of definition has contributed to a ‘business as usual’ perspective that ignores the challenge of achieving sustainability within agricultural industries and resource management.

Objectives
This research explores the various perceptions and definitions of the TBL as they are applied in extension theory and practice. The study began with the following objectives:

1. to develop a critical perspective on the current use of the TBL in agricultural production systems, particularly in extension theory and practice:

a. to understand the production landscape context of extension and its implications for extension practice; and
b. to identify an alternative theoretical framework for the practice of extension that better enables the delivery of TBL outcomes

Methods used
There were two phases in the research methodology. The first phase consisted of a comprehensive review of the literature on agriculture, extension and related disciplines, the aim of which was to develop a critical perspective on how the TBL is currently being used in production systems.

In the second phase, the findings of the literature review were used to develop a framework to better inform the process of extension and to improve the capacity to identify and evaluate TBL outcomes.

Key findings
This research reveals several factors critical to influencing the capacity of extension practitioners to support TBL processes. The first of these relates to the theory and method behind the project itself.

At the completion of the literature review it was clear to the researchers that the complexity and usefulness of engaging in a TBL approach would depend on acknowledging ‘mess’. That is, the TBL as a concept, is not linear. Users of a TBL process will not be able to set up a straight line or ‘a’ to ‘b’ approach. Rather, TBL requires many lines to be followed simultaneously, and this requires ‘mapping’ or the construction of a matrix or model in order to track the strands in play through what we might call ‘mess’. To be realised as an effective addition to extension practice therefore requires the establishment of a framework without a guaranteed direction as an outcome.

The acknowledgment of multiple strands simultaneously at work is that in linking social and economic and environmental outcomes as an integrated process throughout a project or program (rather than just summing up each as a silo at the end of the project page in the manner of accounts) there is going to be continually new and even unexpected outcomes. Each time the framework is integrated into extension programs and practice there will be different processes involved. It will require discussion and analysis—a diagnosis of the implications if ‘x’ is pursued, for example.

Extension practitioners and funders will have a conceptual tool that assists them to acknowledge the dynamic reality of social, economic and environmental interaction, but they will not have a guaranteed outcome¹. Each use of this framework will elicit the evolving reality of that particular project or program. The diagnosis will emerge throughout the application of the framework but most notably at the design, implementation and evaluation stages of the extension practice.

Therefore a key finding of the report is that the TBL concept can be a useful tool by providing both a process to help recognise and define local economic, environmental and social factors that affect everyday practice, as well as a process to identify a set of sustainable outcomes or goals.

A stronger understanding of what the TBL means and adopting the concept for both outcomes and process at both local (micro) and policy (macro) levels can result in better extension practice. This potential often remains largely unexplored because extension programs are generally focused on outcomes rather than processes. Current extension efforts commonly reflect a confusion of goals around a single target such as improved production. There is also a tendency to minimise the lack of coherence between locally and institutionally defined TBL best practice.

It may be optimistic to imagine that by devising a framework for fleshing out the TBL, we can improve the relationship between institutional expectations and demands, and local practice. The proposed framework is designed, however, to improve how stakeholders approach the concept of the TBL. Therefore this research proposes that extension practitioners work as facilitators at the interface between stakeholders. In reconceptualising the extension practitioner in this way, we recognise the challenge to traditional industry or commodity-based programs. However, we argue that in complex times, recognising the wider context for decision making is key to understanding the resource management, social and economic possibilities. We also argue that this context is often understood implicitly but in making it explicit in the use of the framework, it helps create the necessary conditions that enhance discussion and trigger change.

Discussion between stakeholders is an essential part of the TBL extension process and outcomes. This discussion between stakeholders is called the ‘discursive community’ and is an idea that originates in the literature on civic space and civil society. It suggests that citizens can make complicated decisions on issues such as sustainability and globalisation if they are able to engage with the ideas in a way that makes them locally relevant. This interaction requires multi-directional communication that is generated with citizens as participants, rather than the conventional ‘top-down’ flow of knowledge and information.

Further, the discursive community does not imply just one ‘community’ or one perspective, rather it recognises a variety of perspectives. Logically, therefore, extension policy and practice need to reflect a more complex relationship to and with stakeholders, including recognising that extension practitioners are one of the stakeholders. The potential to change the way we think about extension policy and practice by integrating social, economic and environmental processes and outcomes offers the opportunity to integrate production systems and post productivism landscapes across regions and nationally. This simply means that extension is acknowledged as being relevant to more than just production outcomes. The social, economic and environmental well-being of those within these landscapes may depend on other values being incorporated into the landscape mosaic—for example, ecotourism or farm forestry.

Finally, the framework requires the extension practitioner to have two roles. One is to be proactive and reflective so they can contribute to the discursive community as a participant in the multi-disciplinary interaction. The other is to facilitate the TBL framework process. The framework acts as a tool, identifying the potential connections between social, economic and environmental policy types, between types of connective opportunities and between stakeholders.

Recommendations
The framework is a useful tool for recognising and interpreting the context in which extension processes and practitioners operate. It is also a way of determining the potential for existing and future extension initiatives to stimulate sustainable change in economic, environmental and social systems at the micro and macro levels of production policy and practice.

The research provides some important guidelines for extension theory and practice that aim to deliver TBL outcomes. These are summarised below.

• Extension that adheres to a TBL approach requires that the economic, environmental and social aspects of issues be considered as three strands of a whole approach when extension policy and program development are being planned, implemented and evaluated.
• To understand the complex context in which it operates, extension must involve the range of stakeholders, including official institutional and local stakeholders, and allow their various perspectives on policy and practice – in particular, their definitions of best practice – to be represented.
• Extension that effectively promotes and contributes to sustainable landscape change depends on participative methods that encourage genuine collaboration through discourse between institutional policy makers, researchers, extension practitioners, program participants and other stakeholders. This includes those from other local production industries and interest groups. These methods will also enhance the collective capacity of stakeholders to define and continuously evaluate what TBL best practice is according to local contexts.

 ¹ In reality the outcome is more likely to be one in which there is a simultaneous linking of the TBL indicators but the attention in the framework is initially to the process.

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Last updated: July 2007
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