AN INTEGRATED STRATEGY TO ENHANCE PROFITABILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL COMPLIANCE IN THE AUSTRALIAN SUGAR INDUSTRY

As a mature industry, the Australian sugar industry faces a new set of challenges. While striving for profitable production, the industry is addressing the difficult task of ensuring that the environmental impact of industry practices is acceptable to the broader community. Achieving these twin goals in the medium to long term requires strategies and actions to guide optimal resource use. Cleaner production strategies that offer incentives to promote efficient production and minimise net social costs of industry operations are needed. This paper examines how to solve the problem of clean production in cane growing. As a component of a broader study, this paper identifies the essential dimensions for designing a strategy to minimise the total cost of compliance with environmental requirements. Policy insights are derived in the light of an integrated economic-environmental analysis applied to nutrient management, employing best available scientific information. This approach moves away from the traditional reactive management style towards a strategic preventive regime aimed at developing an integrated safeguard system to achieve triple-bottom-line performance in the industry.