Explanatory Paper: Key Sustainability Concepts and Their Practical Application
For this paper, you are pulling together sustainability concepts and tools that we have learned and practiced during the first half of this quarter.
You are writing a paper that will explain and acquaint a general audience to key sustainability concepts. Your paper will define the concepts and explain how they can be used to solve problems. Assume your reader is a person who is intelligent, but uninformed about sustainability concepts or how to apply them effectively.
You paper must demonstrate critical thinking and integrate a minimum of five (5) quality sources that directly relate to and support your thesis statement. At least three (3) of the sources must be a peer-reviewed journal article or review.
You are allowed to “self-plagiarize,” which means that you may use content you have written previously. However, you will need to revise and edit the content to meet audience need. Your general audience will genuinely want to understand sustainability concepts for your chosen product/service and how they might apply those basic critical thinking skills and sustainability terms in their own decision-making process.
Paper Requirements
Your paper should be a minimum of 4 pages long in APA 7th edition format (title page and reference pages do not count towards the page count).
Your introduction should include an explanatory thesis statement that is supported throughout the paper.
Your paper should include a minimum of five (5) quality, peer-reviewed sources; three (3) of those sources must be peer-reviewed journal articles. Each source must be cited in the text at least once.
You paper must cover the following main topics:
- Life Cycle Thinking – Define and explain life cycle thinking and how it relates to sustainability.
- First define the term generally, citing the textbook or a peer-reviewed article.
- Next, choose an example that illustrates the concept. Use the example to further explain the concept in a clear and concise way that a new reader could understand.
- You might consider discussing the specifics of the plastic or electronics life cycle as an example.
- Life Cycle Assessment – Define and explain the term LCA and how it is used as a measurement tool for life cycle thinking.
- First define the term generally, citing the textbook or a peer-reviewed article.
- Next, continue to build upon the previous example to further inform your reader.
- Be sure to use in-text citations every time you cite a source, even if you have cited it previously in the paper.
- Life Cycle Cost Analysis – Define and explain the term LCCA and how it is used as a measurement tool.
- First define the term generally, citing the textbook or a peer-reviewed article.
- Describe why costs are an important step in assessing how to approach a sustainability argument/proposal/decision. You should continue to build upon the previous example to ensure unity in your paper.
- Triple Bottom Line Perspective – Define and explain the term triple bottom line
- First define the term generally, citing the textbook or a peer-reviewed article.
- Describe why business owners, policy makers and the public should pay attention to social and environmental impacts along with economic impacts. You should continue to build upon the previous example(s) to ensure unity in your paper.
- Circular Economy – Define and explain the term circular economy and how it relates to sustainability.
- First define the term generally, citing the textbook or a peer-reviewed article.
- Next, use the same example you introduced earlier and expand upon it to illustrate the circular concept further.
Conclusion – Your conclusion should not only summarize the main points of the paper, but also how the presented material could be used effectively in decision making. Make sure a general audience can understand and be persuaded in their decision-making.
Assignment Hints and Help
Explanatory (Expository) Thesis Statement. An explanatory thesis statement tells your reader what you will explain and what aspects or parts of the topic will be considered.
For example, ”Sustainability is a general term that encompasses many different ideas, viewpoints and concepts.”
Paper Organization using First Level Headings. You should consider using a fist level heading for each of the sustainability concepts that require a definition, explanation and example.
Audience. Be sure to write to a general audience. Try giving your paper to a friend, a writing center tutor, or someone unfamiliar with sustainability terminology and ask if they think you paper is informative and persuasive. Another strategy is to think back about your knowledge level at the beginning of the quarter and write to that version of yourself.
In-text Citations. Please watch the following video for help on how to list your sources on your reference page and how to use proper APA-style in-text citations for EACH source you list.