Materials in a Sustainable Society

In this course we discuss the role of materials in the society focused on circularity and sustainable development.

We will examine the trends in material consumption and production and the concept of material and resource criticality and how it impacts environment, economy and material selection strategies.

We will discuss legislation guiding the use and development of materials and learn to incorporate multiple viewpoints when dealing with materials selection challenges.

The course is split in several blocks covering materials lifecycles, modern legislation and strategies for material selection. We extensively focus on analyzing eco-data, fact finding and analysis of complex material use scenarios.

Throughout the course the students deliver two group presentations, hand in one written report on the tutorial eco-audit case and provide feedback to their peers.

IMPORTANT: The course is given to the broad audience and does not cover materials science in depth.

The course is graded based of students performance during:

1) Tutorial case presentation (25%)

2) Project case presentation (25%)

3) Final written project report (25%)

The course is followed by the written open book exam contributing the remaining 25% of the final score. The exam focuses on checking the ability of the student to critically assess complex scenarios and make well-justified judgements. All grades are based on the group performance.