Assignment Guidelines

The module handbook provides a summary of the assessment tasks. This document provides additional advice on assessment preparation, but you should read it along with the Assessment section of the module handbook. The excel file Marking scheme (Assignment Guidelines folder) includes the marking criteria (rubrics) for each assignment.

Topic choice

You can choose either a  product  (tangible good) or  a service  (intangible).  Products  can  be  either durable or consumable (including disposable goods).

•     Examples of durable goods include automobiles, electrical appliances, computers, furniture, books …

•     Examples of consumable & disposable goods include printer ink cartridges, fuel, detergents and toiletries, food (processed or unprocessed) …

•    Services would  include  examples  such  as hotels, flights,  music festivals, cloud storage data services…Although services are intangible, physical products are often used in their delivery (for instance, a  hotel uses furniture,  bedding, food to  provide accommodation services to clients)

You can choose to some extent how specific you want to be on the definition of the product or service. For instance, both topic choices would be suitable:

•    The environmental impacts of a chocolate bar

•    The environmental impacts of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk

However, the latter option limits the focus of the analysis and would require more specific data. It is advisable to avoid avery narrow definition of the topic as it may be more difficult to find information. On the other hand, you should avoid very broad topics (such as the environmental impacts of petrol) since it would be difficult to explore such topics with enough depth within the limits of a single page infographic and a 2500-word essay.

You should also note that some products are used as components or ingredients in other products. For instance, palm oil is mainly used as an ingredient in a wide range of products. It would be fine to select such a topic considering the different final uses of the ingredient.

Consider that it would be very difficult to think of a product or service without environmental impacts. Hence, any product or service would be suitable as long as you can find relevant information and you can present this information in the formats required for the summative assessment (infographic & essay).

Please, note that you should use the same topic (product or service) both for the Infographic and for the Essay. You are advised to submit a proposal (500 words) to justify your topic choice and confirm the topic choice with your tutor. The proposal should explain the choice of topic, provide a summary of the main environmental impacts and a list of references that you plan to use in the summative assessments.

Infographic

The infographic should summarise the environmental impacts of the product or service in a single A4 page. An infographic includes a combination of text and visual information such as graphs/figures/maps or tables. You can design your infographic using the tools available in Microsoft office (Word or Powerpoint) and save it as a pdf. You do not need to use any special software. You can choose either portrait or landscape orientation.

You should consider the balance of text and visual information on the page. It may be better to use bullet points for the text. For instance, the lifecycle of the product or service can be presented in a visual form  (as  a  chart where  arrows  connect the different  lifecycle  stages).  Bullet  points  can  be included in text boxes to summarise the main points for each stage.  In addition, you can  present statistical data on information such as greenhouse gas emissions in the form of a chart rather than write full sentences.

The information should be clearly presented, with key points standing out. You are not expected to have advanced graphic design skills. It is best to use plain fonts (such as Arial) and avoid too many colours. You should check that the font size is legible.

You should still use references to show the sources of your evidence. However, the infographic does not need to use as many references as the essay. References can be written in a smaller font.

You can see some examples of infographics regarding environmental impacts following the links below. Please, note that these infographics are not sample assignments for this module.

Environmental impact of a coffee farm

Environmental impact of a coffee cup

Environmental impacts of fast fashion (numerical data missing, but different categories of impact are shown across the supply chain)

Although the infographic itself should be in a single page, you can insert an introductory page which will include the title of the topic and a short description.

Note that you should not save the infographic as a screenshot [screenshots cannot be processed

correctly in Turnitin]. Turnitin cannot process files that do not contain a minimum number of words.

Essay

The essay should include the following sections.

•   Introduction (approximately 150 words)

The introduction should justify the choice of the product or service and explain the aims of the essay. You can mention the essay outline before moving to the main body of the essay.

•   Literature Review (about 600 words)

Drawing on concept and theories of sustainability the literature review should consider the question:

is it possible to reconcile economic growth with the protection of the environment and the need to address climate change?

You can refer to approaches such as the triple bottom line, ecoefficiency, natural capitalism , degrowth and the circular economy to support your arguments.

• Analysis of the environmental impacts of the product/service (800 words)

This section should provide an account of the environmental impacts the product or service has at different stages of its lifecycle (including product, consumption/usage and disposal stages).

Different types of environmental impact can be considered such as greenhouse gas emissions, water use, emissions of various pollutants. You should aim to specify or quantity the impacts where possible using appropriate indicators (For instance, do not just write: “Cotton is a water intensive crop, so a lot of water is used to make a pair of jeans”. Instead, try to find information regarding how many litres of water -on average- are used to make atypical pair of jeans).

Evaluate the information from different sources in order to prioritise the most important impacts in your analysis.

• Mitigation of the environmental impacts (800 words) In this section you could consider questions such as:

-      What type  of actors could help alleviate the environmental impacts? (business, consumer groups,government or NGOs may be relevant actor groups)

-      Which measures could reduce the environmental impacts of the product/service? Have any relevant measures been applied already?

-      Could technological innovation make the product or service more sustainable?

-      Could the product or service become more efficient? (Is there any possibility of the rebound effect?)

-      Is there any evidence that regulatory measures would be helpful?

-      What would mitigation cost and how could it be financed?

-      Is there  a  need to diminish consumption of the product/service? What alternative options exist? (e.g. replacing short-haul flights with rail travel)

These questions are not meant to be used as sub-headings; they indicate what issues you could discuss in this section. Depending on the findings from your research, some questions maybe more pertinent.

•    Conclusion (about 150 words)

Summarise the environmental impacts and how they could be alleviated. Avoid including information that has not been discussed in the main body. The conclusion is meant to emphasise the main findings.

• References (aim for at least 7 relevant academic references)

References should follow the Harvard style. The quality and relevance of the sources are more important than their number.