MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development

Session 1: writing introductions and learning from good models in journal

papers and other types of document

Pre-session task

Please don’t spend more than about 30 minutes on this. We’ll look at the introductions in
the session as well. The idea is simply to move faster in the session itself.

Below in Part 1 you will find 3 introductions to journal articles

1. Decide before reading what you expect in terms of strategy and organisation - the
order and the phases
2. Take either introductions 1 and 2, or, 2 and 3 and using highlighters shade the
various stages and functions noting narrowing of focus as you go. Ask yourself how
successful these introductions are.
3. Develop a short list of criteria for writing introductions from what you have observed
and think about how that might vary for different types of writing eg. reports, essays,
blogs and reviews.
4. Be ready to explain and share what you have observed to people in other groups
5. Have minimised on your computer a journal paper from a field that interests you

Notes:
Part 1
Introduction 1

INTRODUCTION

Society demands that forest planners balance more diverse resource objectives than ever
before (Côté and Bouthillier 1999, Kneeshaw et al. 2000, Schulte et al. 2006). Modern
sustainable forest management (SFM) has, therefore, evolved from basic timber supply to
more integrated land-use planning with social, economic, and ecological dimensions (Lämås
and Eriksson 2003). Despite dramatic advancements in computing power, GIS technology,
and simulation modeling, decision support tools for SFM have lagged behind the growing
diversity of forest planning objectives (Province of British Columbia 1996, Baker and
Landers 2004). A root cause underlying this lag is the sheer complexity of the problem.
Multi-scalar ecological and human systems form complex relationships (Gunderson and
Holling 2002), making them difficult to understand, let alone model. Nonetheless, forest
management requires sound guidance for strategic planning, because choices made today will
have lasting effects on future ecosystem services and opportunities (Spies et al. 1994). There
is a pressing need for approaches to support strategic landscape planning that can maximize
innovation for a particular situation (i.e., address specific questions and use local
information) and minimize re- invention (i.e., make use of existing models and techniques).

Forest planners often look to the many existing models for decision support (Messier et al.
2003). The primary limitation with this approach is that all models, as simplifications of
reality, are limited to the domains for which they were created. Modeling domains have
multiple dimensions, including space and time, traditional scientific disciplines, and type of
system or location (Messier et al. 2003, Mladenoff 2004). Forest ecology models designed for
research (e.g., Aber et al. 1995, Pacala et al. 1996, He and Mladenoff 1999, Kimmins et al.
1999) lack the social and economic dimensions of SFM and often do not match the scales of
interest to planners. Such models also require expertise and specialized data for
parameterization and interpretation that is often not available to forest planners or simply
irrelevant to them. In contrast, forest optimization models that combine growth and yield with
harvest scheduling or timber supply analyses were designed specifically for production-
oriented forestry and are the current staple of most forest planning (e.g., Feunekes and
Cogswell 1997). Such models are well-suited for production- oriented questions (i.e., their
intended domain), but they lack integration with key ecological processes, including
succession and natural disturbance, which affects their reliability (Fall et al. 2004).

Using off-the-shelf models is a top-down approach, where information primarily flows from
researchers and planners to local communities. It benefits from the expertise and resources
that went into model development, but risks being unable to adapt to the unique questions,
knowledge, context, and cross- disciplinary integration inherent to any specific SFM planning
initiative. An alternative approach is case-specific modeling (Antle et al. 2001, Kruse et al.
2004), where information primarily flows from local sources to researchers and planners to
build a model from the bottom up in support of local needs. Case-specific modeling
customizes the modeling domain to the specific planning needs, but the time and cost of
developing new models can limit their ability to rapidly inform the decision-making process
(Fall et al. 2001), and by definition, customized models are not intended for re-use elsewhere.
Therefore, planners are handed the “devil’s choice” between top-down and bottom-up
modeling approaches. No single model can address the needs of all forest planning situations,
and attempts to build such models will likely suffer from over-generality, scale mismatch
issues, or endless additions to address new data and questions (Derry 1998, Commission
d’étude sur la gestion de la forêt publique québécoise 2004). Given the exploding demand for
simulation modeling support in SFM, it is also doubtful that the technical capacity exists to
produce customized models for every planning situation.

Managers need a general and flexible framework to support SFM planning, one that answers
the questions being asked at the right scale and in a timely and cost-efficient fashion, while
still integrating the three dimensions (social, economic, and ecological) that shape managed
forest ecosystems. We propose a “toolkit” approach that builds on existing and readily
adaptable modeling “tools” that have been developed and applied to previous research and
planning initiatives across Canadian boreal forests and similar ecosystems. This approach is a
hybrid between selecting a model “off the shelf” and building a customized model. The goal
is to keep the scientific and rapid deployment advantages of top-down approaches, as well as
the adaptive, shared-ownership advantages of bottom-up approaches. Although our
experience comes primarily from North American boreal forests, we believe that such an
approach should rapidly inform sustainable forestry in any social, economic, and ecological
context because it can adapt to new circumstances while simultaneously taking advantage of
cumulative experience to answer planning questions quickly and appropriately.

Our purpose is to outline the process of identifying questions, finding the tools and
information to answer them, and then ensuring that the interacting suite of domain specific
tools informs the global objectives of the planning process (i.e., the toolkit approach to SFM).
We first overview a process that inserts a meta-modeling approach into a collaborative
modeling framework that focuses on local planning needs. We then illustrate the process of
applying that framework to a case study in central Labrador, an area dominated by pristine
forests that is currently managed by a cooperative provincial government–First Nation
partnership. In closing, we elaborate on our lessons learned when coupling a suite of models
in contrast to using or developing one integrated model in the context of participatory
modeling in support of SFM.

Source: Insight, part of a Special Feature on Crossing Scales and Disciplines to Achieve Forest Sustainability A Toolkit Modeling
Approach for Sustainable Forest Management Planning: Achieving Balance between Science and Local Needs Brian R. Sturtevant et
al.

Notes:
Introduction 2 (followed by a long literature review)

1. Introduction

Manufacturing sector demands for energy and material resources are increasing. Presently
manufacturing consumes over 35% of the global energy, whilst emitting 17% of global
greenhouse gasses [1]. Public policy has brought eco-efficiency to the forefront of global
sustainability strategies for reducing energy, material consumption and carbon emissions by
2050. Eco-efficiency could save more than one-fifth of projected manufacturing energy
demand [2]. Alongside this material efficiency techniques that reduce the weight of inputs
and losses in production can further this. For these reasons eco-efficiency is becoming an
increasingly important organisational performance measure. Its indicators are regularly used
alongside those of productivity, cost, quality, health and safety in operations and corporate
social responsibility reporting.

Moves toward improving factory eco-efficiency are being driven by reductions in resource
use [3]. Early interventions seek to reduce energy and materials used in localised areas, such
as manufacturing cells [4]. However, there is paucity of literature on the combining of
manufacturing, utility and facility assets. In particular there is little consideration for the
relationship between modelled assets, data granularity and eco- efficiency performance
indicators.

A factory eco-efficiency modelling framework based upon data-granularity factors is justified

using literature. It is then applied to UK furniture manufacturer’s cursory and detailed
resource and production data to model the eco-efficiency of their factory assets. Modelling
results are discussed and conclusions on the framework’s applicability are provided.

Source: Factory eco-efficiency modelling: framework application and analysis Aanand Dave et al. Procedia CIRP 40 (2016) 214 – 219

Notes:
Introduction 3

Introduction

History is replete with examples of technologies that were developed and adopted with the
intention of enhancing human well-being but, while meeting this goal, caused unintended and
unexpected damage to the environment. Prominent examples include formation of the ozone
hole due to the use of chlorofluorocarbons, climate change due to reliance on fossil fuels, and
aquatic dead zones due to use of artificial fertilizers. This harm to ecosystem services—the
basic life support for humanity—can make human activity unsustainable. The underlying
causes for these negative impacts include the narrow boundary of traditional engineering that
ignores the broader life cycle environmental implications of engineering decisions, and the
practice of ignoring the role of ecosystems in enabling engineering activities.1

Life cycle assessment (LCA)2,3 and related footprint methods4,5 developed over the last two
decades have become popular for considering the broader impacts of engineering activities.
These methods consider activities from “cradle to grave” so that environmental impacts
across the entire larger system may be assessed. Decisions based on such analyses are less
likely to shift the impact outside the narrow boundary of engineering models and analysis.
Cradle-to-grave methods, and LCA in particular, have been used to incorporate sustainability
considerations into virtually all engineering fields, including product design, process design,
supply chain design, planning and logistics, and economic and policy analysis.6–9 Such
methods quantify environmental impacts and incorporate them into the decision-making
process, in addition to the more traditional technological and economic criteria such as profit-
ability, safety, and reliability.

Methods for sustainable process and supply chain design use life cycle assessment to quantify
environmental interventions, including pollutant production and natural resource
consumption, attributable to the system being designed. Life cycle implications of the system
are determined based on environmental interventions data for the production and distribution
of all inputs to the designed system. The design problem is typically formulated as an
optimization with at least two objective functions, one economic and one environmental. 10,11
Usually, the economic objective function is quantified with profit or net present value (NPV)
of the system of interest, and the environmental objective function is quantified by an
aggregated indicator such as global warming potential12,13 or Eco- Indicator 9914,15 based on
the system of interest and its life cycle.

Most sustainable engineering methods follow a “bottom up” approach in that they model the
system of interest in detail at the smallest relevant scale, using fundamental engineering
models or plant- or product-specific data. The larger scale life cycle is modeled in less detail
using empirical data that represents regionally average production technology. Such
approaches are an appealing way of expanding traditional engineering design methods to
incorporate life cycle considerations in engineering decisions, and have been applied to
product design,16,17 process optimization,18 and supply chain design.19 However, this
approach suffers from some serious shortcomings. Using life cycle models from inventory
databases requires defining a system boundary, generally by choosing which parts of the life
cycle are considered to be most important. This process LCA method accounts for a
relatively small proportion of the complete life cycle.20 Because a large portion of the life
cycle is neglected, any design decisions based on inventories used in process LCA are based
on incomplete life cycle information and may, therefore, be sub-optimal. In particular, the
narrow process LCA system boundary allows environmental impacts to be shifted to
processes outside the life cycle. As a result, impacts within the system boundary decrease but
impacts generated outside the boundary may not change at all or may even increase.21 In
order to ensure correct, optimal design decisions and to avoid causing unintended harm, the
full life cycle must be accounted for in the sustainable design problem. However, process
LCA requires that each life cycle process and each connection between processes be modeled
individually. Expanding the life cycle boundary is thus impractical and computationally
intractable for moderately large life cycle networks, as the number of connections in any life
cycle network is essentially infinite.22

In addition to the narrow life cycle boundary, the life cycle itself is modeled with fixed
vectors of inputs and outputs that are scaled linearly.23,24 Environmental interventions
generated within the life cycle are modeled with constant emissions factors,7,8,25 the values
of which are assumed to be independent of the life cycle structure and of the system being
designed. The life cycle model thus fails to capture effects of interactions between the life
cycle and system of interest.

These challenges of using bottom up models also apply to most LCA and footprint studies. In
LCA, “top down” methods have also been developed to analyze large systems at the regional,
national, and global scales. Top down analyses rely on coarse, simplified models derived
from highly aggregated empirical data. Environmentally extended input–output (EEIO)
analysis is one example of a top down method,26–28 and has been applied to sustainability
studies up to the global scale.29 Computable general equilibrium and partial equilibrium
models30,31 are other top down methods applied to macroscale sustainability analyses.
Although top down models are comprehensive, particularly compared to process LCA, they
lack detail at smaller scales.

LCA researchers have developed methods for integrating process LCA with EEIO models to
result in hybrid LCA models.32 These methods combine models of key life cycle processes
with a narrow reach (value chain scale), with data from input–output models that are coarse
and highly aggregated but with a broad reach (economy scale).33–37 To date, sustainability
studies using hybrid life cycle methods38–40 have focused solely on analysis; there have been
no applications of hybrid methods to sustainable design problems.

Life cycle studies and methods rely on empirical data from process and input–output LCA
databases, and do not benefit from the availability of fundamental models of individual
processes and equipment. Consequently, life cycle models, be they process model-based,
input–output model-based, or hybrid, treat the constituent processes as fixed and linearly
scalable. In practice, industrial processes are influenced by factors such as market conditions
and corporate objectives, and benefit from economies of scale. In engineering design and
analysis, such changes are captured using fundamental process models, but these benefits
currently do not extend to life cycle methods. Conversely, the ability of LCA to consider
scales all the way from the value chain to the planet does not extend to sustainable design.
Characteristics of the models used in each of these methods are summarized in Figure 1.
This work develops a multiscale “process to planet” (P2P) modeling framework that
integrates engineering models, standard life cycle models, and EEIO models to capture
systems at multiple spatial scales. The P2P modeling framework connects detailed
fundamental models of individual processes and unit operations at the “equipment” scale with
linear, empirical models of averaged life cycle processes at the “value chain” scale and input–
output models of the regional, national, or global economic system at the “economy” scale.
Current hybrid LCA methods connect models at the value chain and economy scales, and the
P2P framework expands the reach of these methods to fundamental models at smaller scales.
The resulting model is both detailed and comprehensive, and can be used to capture the
effects of small-scale decisions on a large-scale system and vice versa: the P2P framework
thus combines the advantages of bottom up and top down methods while addressing the
shortcomings of both. The framework is also highly versatile and can be used within an
optimization formulation to solve virtually any sustainable engineering problem, from
process design to multiperiod supply chain planning.41 The flexibility of the P2P framework
also enables design problems to be solved at scales larger than conventional sustainable
process and supply chain design; for instance, design variables can be included at the value
chain scale for the simultaneous design of a life cycle network and individual plants within
the network. In a similar manner, design variables at the economy scale can be used to
capture the effects of tax and other policies on the entire system, allowing policies to be
designed according to the effect they have at smaller scales.

First, background is given on input-output models, EEIO analysis and life cycle assessment
methodologies. The P2P modeling framework is then developed and demonstrated with a toy
production system. The article concludes with a discussion of potential applications of the
framework, including current and future work.

Source: Process to Planet: A Multiscale Modeling Framework Toward Sustainable Engineering. Rebecca J. Hanes and Bhavik R. Bakshi
William G. Lowrie Dept. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 DOI
10.1002/aic.14919 Published online July 18, 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com)

Notes:

Learning from journal articles

Much can be learned about strategy and organisation from professionally written
introductions. Much can be learned about models of good language and clarity of
communication too. A little genre analysis can be very illuminating. Let’s see how and then
apply it to an introduction to a journal paper you have chosen.

Notes on Zebrafish:
Part 2

The principles above can now be adapted to the variety of different types of document that
you will soon be writing.

In your breakout rooms divide yourselves into two groups with one looking at the criteria for
the Organisational Change Strategy assignment and the other looking at the Personal
Change Challenge. In your respective groups discuss how you would adapt your
introductions in organisation and tone to fit the task. Think of what would characterise a
very good introduction. Spend 5 minutes on this and then come back to the whole group and
exchange thoughts and discuss (10 mins).

Task 1: Report on how you would identify and introduce a change to the sustainability
strategy of an organisation (3000 words)

1. Assessment Criteria
 Provide a suitable overview of an organisation to be changed and be able to
apply some models and tools to the organisation;
 Demonstrate an ability to devise a change strategy, and tactics for change, to
a real change issue;
 Identify the various positions of power within the organisation and how these
may be utilised as part of the change strategy;
 Demonstrate recognition of the possibilities and role of the change agent and
be able to demonstrate some of the personal skills needed to be effective in
change;
 Describe 'how you would know if you have succeeded': define the 'internal'
changes you want to see in the organisation; but also the different
'outcomes' you expect them to deliver;
 Reflect on possible barriers to the proposed change and how these may be
overcome as part of the change strategy;
 Be aware of the individual power, emotional exposure and support aspects of
being a change agent;
 Style and presentation of report.

Task 2: Blog: write an account of a personal challenge you set for yourself over an 8 week
period (2000 words)

Assessment for the piece will be based on your:

• Articulation of your personal motivation for the selected challenge
• Appropriate coverage of the change activity undertaken
• Analysis of the change undertaken and its likely sustainability
• Reflections on the experience and lessons learned from the change challenge

And, appropriate style and formatting of the blog

Notes:

Building a set of criteria for establishing whether an introduction works.

Try to improve and add to the following:

Read aloud and ask:

 Does this hang together in order from broad to specific?
 Can the order be changed?
 Any gaps? – reader can’t see why you say what you say – assumed too much…
 Too much on something less important – coverage of what is key and proportion
 Does the structure look right? – do headings and subheadings help or hinder?
 Can I say this more directly or succinctly?
 Is the style right here?