Final Paper: A Comprehensive Sustainability Argument
For this final paper, you must choose one product or service life cycle to research in detail. Then you will write a proposal that describes a way to improve sustainability at one or more points in the product/service life cycle. Your proposal will apply the aspects of sustainability (LCA, LCCA, triple bottom line and circular economy) that you practiced in the Part 1 assessment to improve your product or service of choice.
Your audience is a decision maker or an organization who can be influenced to fund your proposal or change behavior using persuasive writing techniques.
Your audience is defined by your goal statement. For example, your audience may be an organization that provides grant funding, the US public or a decision maker at a for-profit company. Perhaps your audience is a US regulatory body. No matter who you define as your audience, you should assume that the audience is intelligent, but uniformed. Your goal is to 1) inform and 2) persuade the audience to change behavior and provide you with funding to conduct the project.
You must also demonstrate research, critical thinking and integrate a minimum of six (6) quality resources that directly relate to your proposal and how sustainability concepts can be applied applied effectively in the workplace or in your community.
Part 2 Assessment Requirements:
Your final proposal paper should be a minimum of 6-8 pages long in APA format (title page, abstract page, and reference pages do not count towards the page count). A minimum of six (6) scholarly sources are also required for this paper; the more sources the better. Your report should cover the following sections:
Title Page
Use APA 7th edition student format to construct your title page.
Abstract
Your abstract is like an executive summary; it stands alone. You must clearly and concisely convey your sustainability argument and its benefit(s) in 1 page. Also, the reader must understand your argument from only the summary. Do not refer to data or terms defined in the proposal. The summary/abstract stands alone (Sample Video on Executive Summary (Links to an external site.)).
Background and Overview of the Sustainability Problem
Provide a brief review of the work that has been done in the product or service area you chose, also known as a literature review (Literature Review Video (Links to an external site.)). You should cite several scholarly sources, complete with in-text citations and appropriate references in APA style.
Define the sustainability problem associated with the product/service you chose. You should also define the key sustainability concepts (i.e. life cycle thinking, life cycle assessment, life cycle cost analysis, triple bottom line, circular economy) that apply to your proposal, using relevant examples and sources. Avoid complex acronyms or jargon; the idea is to provide a brief overview of what is already known about your product/service in general terms so that a decision maker can understand the background and the importance of your proposed path forward. Your audience will not divert time, effort, or resources on a proposal that is difficult to follow.
Hint #1: Your Part 1 assessment paper covered many of the sustainability concepts you may choose to use for this section of your paper. You may self-plagiarize some parts of your own work. However, “cut and paste” will likely not allow your proposal to flow well. Some revision will be needed and not all of the definitions will be needed depending upon you goal and scope.
Hint #2: You are asked to expand upon TBL and CE later in your proposal, so you should define them here in this section.
Goal Statement(s)
Make sure the goal statement includes unambiguous statements about the following:
The intended application (why do the study?)
The reasons for carrying out the study (what will be done with the study in the short term and long term?)
The audience (who will care about it? – who are you trying to convince?)
Whether the results will be used in comparative assertions released publicly (what is the context?)
Scope
Make sure the scope includes:
The product or system to be studied
The system boundaries – You may wish to limit scope by
focusing on a particular life cycle stage (i.e. material extraction, manufacturing, use or disposition)
limiting the region (i.e. Ellensburg, WA state, USA, North America)
analyzing only one type of input (i.e. energy, $) or output (i.e. CO2 emissions, $)
The functional units
Proposed Data Collection Methods
Provide a detailed description of the research methods that you will use in the project. Your description should include a justification for the specific approach that you will use. You are encouraged to repeat methods from the peer-reviewed journal articles you have read this quarter. For example, explain how the methods answered similar questions posed by other researchers and explain how the methods will help you reach your stated goal. For example, you may propose to use a similar method in Kittitas County instead of the entire US.
Your audience will want to know that their efforts and/or funding will make a difference. By using a unified methodology from one or more credible sources, you can demonstrate to your audience that your idea has precedent.
If you wish, your proposal may build upon previous methods. You may wish to discuss the type of inventory analysis (inventory inputs and outputs) that would be required for a life cycle assessment. No matter how your frame your method, be sure to include the type of data to collect and how these data would be validated.
Benefit(s) and Trade-Offs
This section should discuss how your ideas will improve the product/service lifecycle in the short and longer term. When you write about benefits, you should consider your audience very carefully. What social (i.e. helping communities) benefits exist? What environmental benefits exist? What cost improvements (i.e. first cost and ongoing cost) might exist? In other words, discuss how your proposal will address (if approved) each of the triple bottom line concepts in a quantitative fashion. You are welcome to estimate as needed as long as the estimates make sense and are well-explained. Your proposal may include a statement that says you intend to investigate the life cycle costs of your proposal as part of the research.
If your proposal is successful, how would you use the assessment results to effectively influence decision-making?
What would motivate your audience to support your longer term efforts?
How would you convince more key decision makers to implement your proposal? Would a risk assessment or additional cost analysis help?
In other words, if your short term “Phase I” proposal is successful, what are your longer term sustainability plans and how will those plans help your audience?
Hint #3: You might consider 3 second level headings in this section that address each triple bottom line concept for your chosen product/service. For example:
Environmental Benefits
For the environmental benefits, you should quantitatively discuss how your functional unit or cost comparisons might improve sustainability. Be sure to describe how you will measure the environmental benefit.
Social Benefits
For the social benefits, you should consider discussing how communities or workers’ health or well-being will be improved. Try to quantitate, if possible.
Cost/Economic Benefits
For the costs, you may estimate how first costs and ongoing costs are affected or you could simply propose to analyze costs in more detail as part of your proposal.
Conclusion
Remember, the introduction should provide background and tell the reader what the report will include, and the conclusion should summarize what was presented.
