THESES

Master’s theses

At INaB, we deal with the environmental, economic, and social assessments of various products on a daily basis – also in the context of our PhD topics. What we have not yet looked at, however, is the sustainable performance of our PhDs – starting from our first day at INaB until graduation.

The goal of the master thesis thus is to evaluate the environmental, economic, and/or social impact of our PhDs. Therefore, life cycle assessment, life cycle costing and/or social life cycle assessment are to be applied.

The thesis is to be written in English.

Contact: Anna Luthin – anna.luthin@inab.rwth-aachen.de

The automotive industry’s substantial contribution to global emissions and resource consumption underscores the urgent need for robust sustainability regulations. Alongside environmental concerns, social and ethical issues such as labor practices and supply chain transparency are critical ESG concerns, gaining increased attention. Recognizing the urgency, many automotive companies are increasingly focusing on ESG factors to comply with regulatory requirements, attract environmentally-conscious customers, and secure investment from ESG-focused investors. At the same time, global governments and regulatory bodies are increasingly implementing policies to transition the automotive sector towards a low-carbon and sustainable future.

Despite the increasing regulatory pressure, challenges persist in the assessment and comparability of required disclosures within the automotive sector. Thus, this research aims to:

  • Evaluate the current landscape of sustainability regulations within the automotive industry.
  • Assess the availability/ requirement of standardized and harmonized assessment methods, exemplified by the GHG protocol ISO 14064, for the Scope 1-3 emission disclosures.
  • Investigate the potential of LCSA to fulfill the required disclosures and enhance transparency as well as comparability in meeting regulatory indicators, while identifying opportunities and challenges.

Contact: Suzana Ostojic (suzana.ostojic@inab.rwth-aachen.de)

Bachelor’s theses

Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) is the youngest among the three approaches related to Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment. It is evolving throughout time and new methodologies are being incorporated into the researchers’ practices. Data collection is still the greatest constraint, being the primary data collection one of the major challenges to SLCA. 

According to the Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products and Organizations (Benoît Norris et al., 2020), SLCA comprises six stakeholders of analysis: worker, actors of the value chain, local community, society, consumers and children. Among them, the worker stakeholder is the one most commonly assessed either by collecting primary or secondary data sources. 

Therefore, this project aims at running an extensive literature review on the data collections methods and tools, either related to generic or specific data, applied to assessing the six stakeholders, with an emphasis on workers. Furthermore, it aims to map the most assessed indicators, regardless of the economic sector of the studies, in order to propose a harmonised set of indicators for each stakeholder, comprised with a sound definition and suggesting data collection sources and reliable tools within the literature.

This thesis must be written in English.

Contact: Arij Chabrawi (arij.chabrawi@inab.rwth-aachen.de)