Group Assignment for CVEN4104 ‘Sustainability in Construction’

TASK
You (and your group mates!) are hired by an international construction firm as Sustainability
Engineers. This firm has a versatile portfolio of almost any construction activities. In your
interview, you mentioned that you are innovative, and sustainability is your passion. After
settling down in your job, your supervisor gives you a task to demonstrate your innovation and
sustainability knowledge. The supervisor asks you to come up with a sustainable alternative in
one of their construction activities. A sustainable alternative can be a construction material
replacing traditional material, renewable energy, new building design for higher energy
efficiency (passive building), etc. The sustainable alternative must be compared with the
reference product/process.
REPORT
As part of this job, you should do the following tasks and provide a report with in-line reference
numbers and a detailed bibliography.
1. a. describe your proposal (max 20 lines) and b. provide a SMART sustainability
objective (max 2 lines).
2. As per LCA Goal definition requirement, a. provide the application of results (max 2
lines) and b. justify your Goal decision context (max 5 lines).
3. As per LCA Scope definition requirement, a. define functional unit and reference flows
(max 5 lines); b. identify multi-functionality of the chosen reference flow (if it is not
multi-functional then it needs to be clearly explained) and suggest a solution based on
ISO 14044 hierarchy (max 20 lines); c. identify the system boundaries, explain why
100% completeness cannot be achieved, and which unit processes are excluded from
the study (max 20 lines); d. explain geographical, time-related and technological
representativeness of data (max 20 lines); and e. explain which impact categories will
be affected by the studied system based on a literature review (max 20 lines).
4. For both the reference and the sustainable alternative: a. provide a sperate Life Cycle
Inventory (LCI) diagram including all studied flows, unit process levels and names,
system boundary, foreground and background systems; b. assign quantity and unit to
each flow and do a mass balance; c. explain the assumptions used for the LCI (max 30
lines), and provide data reporting table for all unit processes in the system boundary
and include specificity, type (quantity and unit), source and access links.
5. a. calculate the Net Present Value of the sustainable alternative and the reference
system/product; b. calculate Net Savings, Savings to Investment Ratio, Internal Rate of
Return, and Discounted Payback Period for the alternative system/product; c. list the
assumptions and references for the discount rate, study period, investment costs and
revenues (based on LCI unit process and flows). NOTE: Final discounted costs and
revenues for cost-bearing unit process and flows with reference links must be presented
in a table and a spreadsheet of calculations should be attached as an appendix.
6. Provide conclusions by comparing the sustainable alternative and the reference
product/system and describe the benefits and drawbacks of the sustainable alternative
(max 30 lines).
7. Provide the list of references used in the report (references must be included via
Endnote – Instructions can be found here).

INSTRUCTION FOR GROUPING
Every four students will be assigned to a group. You can choose your topic and group mates.
However, your topic must be confirmed by the course conveyor by the 10th of July. Your topic
should be unique which means not more than one group can work on a specific topic (priority
will be given to the person/group who created the topic first). You must upload your short
proposal and provide a SMART sustainability objective and other details here. You can choose
whether to accept other students to join or you have already organised a group of four students
(then you need to list their names and student numbers immediately after uploading the topic).
The person who uploaded the topic needs to organise the briefing meeting with other group
members and s/he will be the contact person for communication with the course conveyor.
Alternatively, you can browse the topics and join the groups that have free space up to four
students by typing your details in front of the nominated topics here. You can only join the
confirmed topics which are highlighted in green by the course convenor. You must have a
group on the 10th of July. You are not allowed to remove a topic or other students from the
spreadsheet without their consent otherwise you will be tracked and penalised.
IMPORTANT NOTES
1. The submission deadline of the group assignment report will be Monday, August the
17th at 9 am. Late submission will not be accepted and zero marks will be given to all
group members.
2. Submission will be through Turnitin link in the Moodle (Plagiarism i.e. more than
30% similarity will result in zero marks for all the group members).
3. Only .pdf files with the following file name format will be accepted:
GroupNo_ProjectName (no handwritten assignment will be accepted). Spreadsheet
of calculations (with the same name format) must be emailed to the course conveyor by
the group contact person.
4. The report front page should include the project name, group No., student names and
numbers.
5. The font size should be 12 with single spacing and normal margins. No other specific
formatting is required.
6. The reports that are not followed the maximum lines limits, file name template
and other requested formatting will be penalised up to 5 marks.







RUBRIC for marking report (180 points i.e. 30/100 final course marks)
Part 1 (8 points):
a. 3 points
b. 5 points (1 point for each element
of SMART)
Part 2 (7 points):
a. 2 points
b. 5 points
Part 3 (25 points):
a. 7 points (3 points for correct
functional unit and 2 points for
each reference flows definition)
b. 3 points
c. 4 points
d. 6 points (2 points for each
geographical, time-related and
technological representativeness)
e. 5 points (up to 5 impact categories
must be clearly identified and
backed up by references)
Part 4 (60 points):
a. 20 points (10 points for each
system with all requested items and
clear mapping and correct levels of
all possible UPs and flows in the
system boundary)
b. 20 points (10 points for each
system with correct quantification
of flows and mass balance based on
valid references)
c. 20 points (10 points for each
system which include specificity,
type (quantity and unit), valid
assumptions, source and access
links for all UPs in the system
boundary)
Part 5 (60 points):
a. 20 points (10 points for each
system)
b. 20 points
c. 20 points (including 10 points for
valid references with links)
Part 6: 10 points
Part 7: 10 points (only Endnote referencing
will be accepted with uniform referencing
style)