LECTURES

Summer semester

The lecture presents the life cycle assessment method according to ISO 14040:2006 and ISO 14044:2006. Insights will be provided in the four main phases of LCA:

1. Definition goal and scope
2. Life cycle inventory (LCI)
3. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA)
4. Interpretation phase

Practical examples for LCA as well as associated method, like carbon or water footprinting, will be introduced to make the method more feasible. In addition, introductory remarks on the Product Environmental Footprint of the European Commission will be provided.

Lecturer: Dr. -Ing. Roland Meyer

Course language: German
ECTS credits: 2
Semester week hours: 2

Link to the lecture at RWTHonline: Life Cycle Assessment (B.Sc.)

    • Introduction on sustainability assessment for community and products
    • Communication strategy on sustainability
    • Methods and tools: LCA, Eco-efficiency, Carbon / Water footprint, Environmental Footprint
    • Sustainability for Companies, Corporate Social Responsibility, Global Reporting Initiative
    • Life Cycle Costing
    • Social Life Cycle Assessment
    • Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment
    • Deepen the topics of the lecture in a group homework

Lecturer: Dr. -Ing. Rose Nangah Mankaa

Course Language: English
ECTS credits: 2
Semester week hours: 2

Link to the lecture at RWTHonline: Sustainability Assessment (M.Sc.)

    • Learning basic concepts on sustainability.
    • Introduction on sustainability assessment of products
    • Understanding differences between sustainability performance for the three dimensions of sustainability.
    • Understanding which portfolio of methods and tools are available for assessing sustainability performance of products and their differences.
    • Methods and tools: Life cycle assessment, Social life cycle assessment and Life cycle costing

Lecturer: Univ. Prof. Dr. -Ing. Marzia Traverso

Course Language: English
ECTS credits: 2
Semester week hours: 2

Link to the lecture at RWTHonline: Sustainability Assessment

    • Learning basic concepts on sustainability and sustainability performance assessments.
    • Learning basic concepts on Circular economy
    • Understanding differences between sustainability and circularity.
    • Understanding which portfolio of methods and tools are available for assessing sustainability performance circular systems
    • Methods and tools: MCI, Framework of Circular LCSA

Lecturer: Dr. -Ing. Rose Nangah Mankaa

Course Language: English
ECTS credits: 2
Semester week hours: 2

Link to the lecture at RWTHonline: Sustainability Assessment of Circularity  

Winter semester

The aim of the module is to convey the fundamental principles of public and operational environmental and sustainability management, the normative requirements, as well as knowledge about the structure, content, and objectives of the most important environmental management systems.

Students will acquire in-depth knowledge of the scientific foundations of public and operational environmental management and the associated principles and methods of life cycle assessment.

Overview of European and national environmental law (federal, state), sustainability assessment/indicators, environmental quality objectives, development of environmental management, material flow and land management, environmental auditing (EMAS, DIN EN ISO 14001 ff.), environmental declaration, environmental performance evaluation, principles of life cycle assessment, basics for the establishment and implementation of environmental management systems.

Lecturer: Dr.-Ing. Roland Meyer

Course language: German
ECTS Credits: 5
Semester week hours: 4

Link to the Lecture at RWTHonline: Sustainability Assessment

    • Introduction on sustainability (definition, concepts)
    • International and European initiatives / standards and strategies on sustainability (political efforts towards sustainable development)
    • Circular economy concept
    • Sustainability indicators
    • Stakeholder analysis
    • Sustainability in industry: strategy, targets, indicators, implementation, measurement, reporting
    • Sustainability in production
    • Sustainable consumption

Lecturers: Univ. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Marzia Traverso, Dr.-Ing. Rose Nangah Mankaa

Course language: English
ECTS credits: 2
Semester week hours: 2

Link to the lecture at RWTHonline: Sustainability Strategies in Policy and Companies (M.Sc.)

    • Normative framework conditions for the recycling of building waste (Kreislaufwirtschaftsgesetz, Bundesbodenschutzgesetz, Wasserhaushaltsgesetz, Landfill Ordinance, GAP-Papier, LAGA M20 etc.)
    • Quality requirements for replacement building materials
    • Elution, extraction, percolation, lysimeter, soil saturation extract
    • Assignment values, limit values, precautionary values, test values
    • Simulation tool Altex-1D Advent of construction waste
    • Basics of construction waste processing (crushing, classifying, sorting, monitoring)
    • Disposal of excavated soil and building waste
    • Selective dismantling and recycling-appropriate demolition recovery plan Instruments of land recycling
    • Working on contaminated sites
    • Pollutants in the building stock

Lecturer: Dr.-Ing. Roland Meyer

Course language: German
ECTS credits: –
Semester week hours: 2

Link to the lecture at RWTHonline: Risk Management for raw materials and resources 

The lecture introduces assessment methods, tools and certification schemes for sustainable buildings such as DGNB and the European framework Level(s). Throughout the lecture, approaches and criteria to evaluate the sustainability performance of buildings in the three dimensions (environmental, economical and social) are discussed. Particular focus is given to life cycle approaches in the construction sector, such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) and Product Environmental Footprint (PEF).

Lecturers: Univ. Prof. Dr. -Ing. Marzia Traverso, Pamela Haverkamp

Course language: English
ECTS credits: 3
Semester week hours: 2

Link to the lecture at RWTHonline: Sustainable Building Assessment Scheme

The course provides a detailed description of different metodologies to assess environmental and social impacts of products:

    • Carbon Footprint
    • Water Footprint
    • Social Footprint and Handprint
    • Product Environmental Footprint (PEF)
Also, the modul deepens the Life Cycle Assessment method.
 

Lecturer: Dr. -Ing. Rose Nangah Mankaa

Course language: English
ECTS credits: 3
Semester week hours: 2

Link to the lecture at RWTHonline: Life Cycle Assessment – Consolidation

Attention!!!

Exam registration

Please remember to register for the lectures and ALSO for seminars. This allows you to get access to Moodle where all course materials and information are available AND remember to register for the corresponding exams. You must register in Seminar Exams separately.

NB! If you take part in an exam without registering, the examination board will decide whether your grade will be accepted. INaB does not have control on that.

Recognition of a lecture

For the recognition of a lecture of the INaB for a comparable course outside the RWTH (e.g. during your stay abroad) we need from you, beyond the link to the description of the course, a description of the lecture contents compared to the contents of the lecture of the INaB, which should be recognized (e.g. in tabular form).

For general issues and questions, please contact info@inab.rwth-aachen.de