Eine effiziente Kommunikation spielt eine entscheidende Rolle bei der Sensibilisierung für das Thema Nachhaltigkeit. Serious Games wurden als relevantes Instrument für die Aufklärung von Erwachsenen über die sozialen Aspekte der nachhaltigen Entwicklung identifiziert. In diesem Zusammenhang wurde Sociabill entwickelt. Sociabill basiert auf den Prinzipien der Sozialbilanz und zielt darauf ab, Erwachsenen ein umfassendes Verständnis für diese Methodik zu vermitteln. In Sociabill schlüpfen die Spieler in die Rolle von Unternehmern, die ihre erste T-Shirt-Kollektion auf den Markt bringen wollen. Ziel ist es, dass die Spieler ihr Unternehmen aufbauen, indem sie Karten für soziale Unterkategorien erwerben, die den Lebenszyklus des Produkts abdecken. Das Spiel endet mit einer Prüfung, bei der festgestellt wird, ob die Spieler sozial verantwortliche, aufstrebende oder rückständige Unternehmen gegründet haben.

Die Durchführung des Spiels in verschiedenen Gruppen ergab, dass das Spiel nochmal etwas überarbeitet werden muss. Die Abschlussarbeit sollte sich kritisch mit dem Spiel auseinandersetzen und Verbesserungsmöglichkeiten aufzeigen (insbesondere in Bezug auf mögliche Auswirkungen und die Punktevergabe je nach Produktionsstandort).

Die Arbeit kann in deutscher oder englischer Sprache verfasst werden.

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

Start date: as soon as possible

Requirements:

• Very good German and English language skills (written and spoken)
• Reliability and commitment
• Ability to work independently
• Proactiveness
• Knowledge of statistics and/or Multi-Decision Criteria Making (MCDM) methods is an advantage

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 (arij.chabrawi@inab.rwth-aachen.de)