Assignment # 2

You work as a Sustainability Analyst for the Consulting firm. As part of your new job assignment, you need to compare two concrete products of two different brands of your choice by conducting in-depth research. Decide which of the two products is the more sustainable one by ranking both products on a scale between 0 (highly unsustainable) and 10 (highly restorative). Based on your research, prepare a 1-Page Report (Word) and 1-PPT Slide (Summary).

Deadline: June 10, 2021.

Submission method: Moodle

Hints to students:

Here students should show that they are able to assess a products life cycle and to point out the sections that make a difference in products triple bottom line impact. The comparison of two different products should help them to develop a feeling for how differences in the product life-cycle design changes the overall impact of a product and of the company producing it. To reduce complexity, it makes sense to focus the analysis on life-cycle hotspots, sections of the life-cycle with a dominant and significant impact.

Example:

As an example, in the following analysis we focus on the cotton production, the labor conditions in factories, washing and drying, and how shirt quality and fashion aspects influence the end-of-life impact of the shirt.

Aspect	T-shirt 1:- Simple Store Brand Shirt	T-Shirt 2: Brand Name Good Shirt:
Cotton production	Chemical-intensive monoculture cotton production.	Organic cotton production, with reduced environmental impact, especially in the use of chemical pesticides.
Labor conditions	Frequently-changing supplier factories with choice based on currently lowest price. No control of work conditions.	Long-run supplier relationship with high and frequently controlled labor standards (International Labor Organization and Great Place to work)
Price, margin, revenues	Cheapest price in the market, little margin, high revenues through high sales volume.	Same price as other external brand name shirts; higher costs of organic and responsible production is offset by lower design and marketing cost. A high margin is achieved and revenues are less than in T-shirt 1due to smaller overall sales volume.
Washing and drying	Highly negative water and CO2 impact through standard washing and tumble drying.	T-shirt has a tumble drying fuse (does not allow to tumble dry) and is made of a special quick air dry cotton fabric; with the standard washing instructions, sewn to the shirt comes website information with tips and tricks for reducing the impact of shirt washing and drying.
Quality and fashion	Often-changing trendy designs and low shirt quality, designed for planned obsolescence 6 months to 1 year periods.	Timeless design and high material quality so that T-Shirt can be used more than five times as long as the standard shirt.
Score	2	8

The table form of comparison chosen here is just one out of many potential formats of analysis. We have chosen fictional, but realistic products here which might be an alternative to comparing real products. For more advanced students, the task can be to further specify each impact and research the quantified magnitudes.