Description: The five protocols presented in this module provide a structured approach to engage students in the process of becoming reflective practitioners while obtaining useful data about current practice in industry. Excerpt for the sustainability baseline protocol: Having successfully completed the last protocol about your company's innovativeness and the innovativeness of its leader(s), the next protocol you will tackle is to establish a baseline of the best practices followed by your company with regard to sustainability. You'll be observing current practice both for general office procedures as well as for your company's projects, and you will also be asking questions of the people in charge of these practices. Probably the most well-known definition of sustainability was put forth by the Brundtland Commission, a task force of the United Nations, in 1987 as they struggled to create a broadly acceptable approach toward sustainable development: meeting the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs and aspirations.1 The original Commission didn't include aspirations as part of the definition, they focused instead on just basic needs being met for all humans. The Commission later realized that going beyond basic survival needs to also meet aspirations is a critical and important element in order to get people, especially those of us in the developed world, to buy in to the concept, and it's better reflective of how we actually operate. This basic definition means that whatever actions we as humans take now toward improving our quality of life, being successful, or meeting our needs and aspirations, we must do in such a way as to preserve the capacity for people in the future to do the same thing to do otherwise would not be fair. In a practical sense, this means not depleting our resource bases (at least not until we develop renewable substitutes); not damaging natural ecosystems, which are the primary mechanism by which our resource bases renew themselves, and striving to ensure that the needs and aspirations of other humans on the planet are met so that those humans don't destroy our fundamental resource bases or ecosystems either.
Cost: Free
Learning Resource Type: Teaching - Case Study (Graduate - Graduate)
Media Type: Document
Difficulty: Easy
Audience: From College Freshman To College Senior
Interventions: Intern Reflective writing
Resource Use: Not Specified
Interactivity: Not Specified
Publication Date: Not Specified
Platform: WWW
Copyright: Not Specified
Comments: 1)Rating: 3_x000D_Title: How I Use Protocol 3a: Baseline Sustainability Best Practices, 3/13/09_x000D_By: Cliff Davidson_x000D_Details: Final instructions: As you complete this assignment, you will find evidence of sustainability documented in multiple ways. A number of the items in the checklists may be documented for your company as formal policy or in other formally documented ways. Any information or examples you can collect on these items should be kept in a folder and/or electronic archive, since it will help you with the next assignment and can also be turned in when you return to campus in the fall for extra credit. Any digital photos you take of the items in the checklist will also count for extra credit and can be turned in on a CD when you return in the fall.