Effective communication plays a crucial role in raising awareness about sustainability. Serious Games was identified as a relevant tool for educating adults on the social aspects of sustainable development. In this regard, Sociabill was developed. Sociabill is grounded in the principles of Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) and aims to provide adults with a comprehensive understanding of this methodology. In Sociabill, players assume the role of entrepreneurs seeking to launch their inaugural T-shirt collection. The objective is for players to construct their businesses by acquiring social impact subcategory cards spanning the product’s lifecycle. Ultimately, the game culminates in a mock audit, determining whether players have established socially responsible, aspirational, or lagging companies.
Testing the game within different groups revealed the need for updates of the game. The thesis should critically look at the game and reveal improvement options (especially related to potential impacts and points granted according to production location).
The thesis can be written in German or English.
Contact: Anna Luthin – anna.luthin@inab.rwth-aachen.de
Start date: as soon as possible
Requirements:
Context:
The movement of both people and goods stands as a fundamental pillar of our society. Currently, mobility, particularly concerning road traffic, faces significant challenges related to durability, safety, efficiency, sustainability, costs, and automation. Such pressing challenges demand immediate and comprehensive solutions. A possible solution can be found in the Digital Twin Road, which can be used for the pavement management in the future road system and has the potential to lead to a sustainable road infrastructure.
However, to have a system that is holistically sustainable, it should comprehend, in addition to environmental and economic considerations, the social dimension and encompass broad social acceptance by the end user. Similar to most disruptive technologies, it is possible that aspects related to the Digital Twin Road could affect the social acceptance of certain stakeholders, also impacting in the way they engage with it. For instance, the presence of sensors collecting data on the road may produce apprehension from road users due to data protection concerns. Therefore, the social acceptance of sensors used for the data collection within the context of the Digital Twin Road (DT) must be investigated.
Goals and tasks:
The main goal of this master thesis is to assess the social acceptance of sensors / DT for the stakeholder “road user”. The main outcome of the thesis is a list of social concerns that affect the social acceptance of the DT. Furthermore, strategies should be proposed to address the identified constraints and improve social acceptance.
First, a literature study should be performed to identify the implications of the use of sensors in the context of the DT. Based on these findings, semi-structured interviews should be conducted on a representative group in Germany to identify which social constraints are considered the most influential. Furthermore, potential strategies for improving social acceptance should be presented under consideration of those most influential social concerns. These aspects should be analyzed by applying a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method to identify the best possible strategies based on the outcomes of the survey. The outcomes of the thesis should support the further investigation of social acceptance of sensors / DT on a larger scale.
Organizational matters:
The thesis will be supervised by Dr. Arij Chabrawi and Pamela Del Rosario (M.Sc.)
The thesis should be written in English
If you’re interested, please write an e-mail to Ms. Del Rosario and Dr. Chabrawi and attach a brief CV and grade summary
Contacts:
Pamela Del Rosario: pamela.delrosario@inab.rwth-aachen.de
Dr. Arij Chabrawi: arij.chabrawi@inab.rwth-aachen.de
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
Start Date:
As soon as possible
Profile:
Context:
Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges of our time, with its impacts already visible today. Be it storms, prolonged drought, or rising sea levels – the changes in our climate take various forms, which can differ regionally and depend on future global warming. Climate risk and vulnerability analysis is a crucial tool for systematically assessing the (potential) risks arising from climate change. Companies in the EU are obligated, as part of their sustainability reporting, to identify existing and future climate risks relevant to their business model. This analysis helps companies better prepare for risks and develop long-term strategies to strengthen their resilience to climate change impacts.
Objective of the Thesis:
The objective of this thesis is to examine the availability of GIS data for assessing physical climate hazards to conduct a climate risk and vulnerability analysis in accordance with the EU Taxonomy. The outcome will be a list of publicly available GIS databases that provide climate risk data for relevant climate hazards and corresponding emission pathways.
The project will begin with an introduction to the methodology of climate risk and vulnerability analysis, along with a description of the requirements according to the EU Taxonomy. A systematic literature review will identify the necessary data required to assess the climate hazards listed in the EU Taxonomy. Following this, a comparison between the required and available data sources will be conducted, and their geographic coverage will be documented.
The thesis can be written in either German or English.
Contact:
Suzana Ostojic – suzana.ostojic@inab.rwth-aachen.de
Start Date:
As soon as possible
Requirements Profile:
Context:
Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges of our time, with its impacts already visible today. Be it storms, prolonged drought, or rising sea levels – climate change brings various changes that can differ regionally and depend on future global warming. Climate risk and vulnerability analysis is a critical tool for systematically assessing (potential) risks arising from climate change. Companies in the EU are required, as part of their sustainability reporting, to identify existing and future climate risks relevant to their business models. This analysis helps companies better prepare for risks and develop long-term strategies to enhance their resilience against climate change impacts.
Objective of the Thesis:
The objective of this thesis is to summarize existing literature on the methodological implementation of a climate risk and vulnerability analysis in light of EU Taxonomy requirements. The outcome will be a practical guide to conducting this analysis.
The project will begin with an introduction to the methodology of climate risk and vulnerability analysis, as defined in ISO standards 14090 and 14091. By incorporating official guidelines, existing climate risk and vulnerability analyses, and a systematic literature review, the thesis will present a comprehensive, practical approach to conducting the analysis.
The thesis can be written in either German or English.
Contact:
Suzana Ostojic – suzana.ostojic@inab.rwth-aachen.de
Start Date:
As soon as possible
Requirements Profile:
Context:
Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges of our time, with its impacts already visible today. Be it storms, prolonged drought, or rising sea levels – climate change brings various changes that can differ regionally and depend on future global warming. Climate risk and vulnerability analysis is a crucial tool for systematically assessing the (potential) risks arising from climate change. Companies in the EU are required, as part of their sustainability reporting, to identify existing and future climate risks relevant to their business models. This analysis helps companies better prepare for risks and develop long-term strategies to enhance their resilience to the impacts of climate change.
Objective of the Thesis:
The objective of this thesis is to develop a sensitivity profile for residential and non-residential buildings concerning the physical climate hazards listed in the EU Taxonomy. The result will be a climate impact chain for residential/non-residential buildings, identifying the sensitivity, i.e., the vulnerability of the system to climate fluctuations or changes and their effects. These sensitivities will be translated into quantitative indicators through an extensive literature review.
The project will begin with an introduction to the methodology of climate risk and vulnerability analysis. Subsequently, existing climate impact chains for the building sector will be analyzed, incorporating public recommendations and studies.
The thesis can be written in either German or English.
Contact:
Suzana Ostojic – suzana.ostojic@inab.rwth-aachen.de
