Project Topics
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Environmental and Sustainable development
The subject of sustainable development contains taking actions and making decision that consider protecting the natural world, with a distinct significance in protecting the capability of the environment to support human life. Today, it is an important issue because it has come to further realisation for us humans that businesses and individuals have a great impact on the environment. To make wise and responsible decisions, which will reduce the businesses negative impact on the environment, is what environmental and sustainability is about. It’s not only concerned with reducing the amount of production of waste or using less energy, but to develop processes which will lead to a business becoming completely sustainable subsequently [8].
It is emphasized that sustainable development is an interaction of ecological, economic and social sustainability. But it is also accentuated that growth and social development must take place within the limits of the planet’s ability to recover and therefore the ecological sustainability weighs the heaviest [9].
Thus, there are three dimensions of sustainable development; environmental, economic and social sustainability, which mutually creates a long-term and sustainable society, see Figure 2.1.1.
Environmental sustainability
The government of Sweden has set up goals for the environmental sustainability [10]. The environment must be protected, which, among other things means that emissions should not harm humans and the natural cycle should be protected.
Furthermore, unnatural substances should not appear in the environment and the biodiversity must be preserved. The second goal is to create an efficient use of energy and natural resources. This means that the use of energy and materials should be limited. Community planning should strive for being more economical on resource products and processes [11].
Economic sustainability
Economic sustainability is simply about getting the economy manageable and convenient, and the counties have different strategic approaches to this. An endeavor for economic development is a common long-term goal. It is about meeting the demand with an appropriate range. It is also about making use of the local products and services to protect the local economy [11].
Social sustainability
Social sustainability is generally the dimension of sustainable development which is perceived as the most difficult to define and there is also no general definition of the term. However, social sustainability focuses on people and other subjects such as democracy, justice, human rights and lifestyles. Public health, culture, security, drugs, quality of life and equality are a few topics that are discussed in the different counties of Sweden, in their ambition for social sustainability and social habitat [11].
ICT (Information and Communication Technology)
ICT indicates to technologies which contribute access to information using telecommunications. It is comparable to information technology or IT, but is broader and targets mainly on the communication technologies that include wireless networks, Internet, and other communication mediums.
In the past few years, information and communication technologies have contributed society with a large range of new communication competencies. People can, for instance, communicate in real-time with others in different countries using technologies like instant messaging, voice over IP or VoIP, as well as video conferencing, e.g. using an application like Skype. Social networking websites such as Facebook allow users globally to remain in contact and communicate on a daily basis [12].
Method for Work Planning
Chapter 3.2 describes the methods used for work planning in the thesis work, consisting of implementing the MOSCOW method and dividing the thesis work into different phases. The five phases which the project was divided into leads back to the developed model in figure 3.1.1.
GANTT chart
The GANTT chart, see Appendix C, was used in the project to describe the different phases, see Appendix E. It also contains checklists, activities, milestones, etc. We have used the GANTT chart to get a clearer image of how the phases are visualized and in that way it becomes easier because we will become more prepared of what is in store for the next phase, and so on.
Project Triangle
The first thing to be done when planning a project is to view a Project Triangle (or Iron Triangle) [7], see fig 3.2.1. The Project Triangle contains three corners. They comprise of the project being finished in the right amount of time and cope within the budget. The larger a budget a project has, the more people can service the project, which leads to the project having more time on it and functionality (delivering the right elements).
However, all of the corners of the Project Triangle cannot be ‘fixed’. It is not possible to determine exactly how much each corner will contain about, some of it must be flexible.
For this specific project we have agreed upon the following:
Duration: This corner of the triangle can partially be changed because our mentor, Anders is fine with it only to a certain limit. Thus, this is slightly flexible and if we are not finished our mentor can move the deadline forward. But the project should at least be finished within a year, because a thesis work that is not finished in a year gets deregistered from the course and one has to start all over again.
Resources: There are two people in this project and we have 400 hours individually, that is 2x400h. That is fixed and nothing can change that because it is a part of the thesis work thesis to be able to dimension the work in this direction.
Scope: There is an opportunity to be able to change this corner, if we do not have time to do what we had planned.
To solve this with these conditions, mentioned above, about the functionality that varies we will work with MOSCOW.
Engineering Related Implementation
The other approach for gathering information besides the literature study and reviewing old thesis reports was to conduct interviews. The interviews was done with the aim of getting information directly from sources who were people that either works with environmental and sustainability topics or project-related topics. The interviews were divided into two categories; expert interviews and industry expert interviews. All of the participants were chosen carefully, meaning, all of them have expertise in certain areas in which their knowledge would benefit the thesis work. Our first interviewee Anna Björklund, associate professor, has expertise in strategic environmental assessment (SEA), energy planning and transport infrastructure and vehicle design just to mention a few areas. [https://www.kth.se/profile/annab/]. The second participant, Anne Håkansson, also associate professor, has research which lies within Computer Science and Data Science with the focus on Artificial Intelligence for different application areas, environmental impact assessment among others. Lastly, Mira Kajko-Mattsson, associate professor at KTH in software engineering has expertise in industrial lifecycle software processes. For the industry expert interview, Madeleine Bergrahm, a sustainability manager at HP (Hewlett-Packard) was chosen.
As mentioned previously all of the participants were chosen with great consideration with the aim of gathering information from the questions that were developed specifically based on their knowledge area.
Implementation Phase
When information had been gathered from the literature study, the review of previous thesis reports and the interviews the project transitioned to the implementation phase. During the implementation phase the focus was on answering the research questions, hence developing the result of the thesis work, i.e. the guidelines, the skill set, SEMAT Essence Kernel card.
Table of contents :
1 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem
1.3 Purpose
1.4 Goal
1.4.1 Benefits
1.5 Methodology
1.6 Delimitations
1.7 Outline
2 Theoretic Background
2.1 Environmental and Sustainable development
2.1.1 Environmental sustainability
2.1.2 Economic sustainability
2.1.3 Social sustainability
2.2 ICT (Information and Communication Technology)
2.3 UKÄ (The Swedish Higher Education Authority)
2.4 Bloom’s Taxonomy
2.5 SEMAT Essence
3 Methods
3.1 Research Method
3.2 Method for Work Planning
3.2.1 GANTT chart
3.2.2 Project Triangle
3.2.3 MoSCoW
3.3 Working Phases
3.3.1 Preparation and Definition Phase
3.3.2 Research Phase
3.3.2.1 Scientific Implementation
3.3.2.2 Engineering Related Implementation
3.3.3 Implementation Phase
3.3.4 Testing Phase
3.3.4.1 Limitations
3.3.5 Final Phase
3.4 Technology
3.4.1 Google Document
3.4.2 Microsoft Word
3.4.3 Astah
4 Results
4.1 How can the transition from a reactive approach to a proactive approach be implemented?
4.1.1 Interviews
4.1.2 Guidelines
4.2 What skill set are demanded for graduate education at a basic level to incorporate sustainability aspects in thesis work? How can one reach the criteria Very High Quality in thesis reports?
4.3 What methods can be used in a proactive way of working?
5 Discussion
5.1 Discussion of Literature Study
5.2 Discussion of Interviews
5.3 Discussion of the Results
5.4 Conclusion
References
