95003 Sustainability in an Interconnected World

95011

Assessment 1 Brief

This assessment brief supplements the Subject Outline information to provide detailed guidelines and requirements. Make sure you read both documents carefully.

Type:                Individual, Video presentation

Weight:            30%

Digital due:       Sunday 24th August 2025 (before midnight – i.e., 11:59pm)

Length:             60-second video uploaded to Canvas & Shared Drive

Purpose:          The purpose of this assessment is to identify potential domains for regenerative action.

Idea generation: Domains of action

This task aims to assess your ability to think like a ‘regenerator’ and identify sustainability problems/opportunities that could be addressed through regenerative action.

Requirements

You are required to identify a sustainability problem/opportunity space in a specific location (e.g. NSW, Sydney, Newcastle, or any other town, city, or region in Australia) and critique existing practices and innovative initiatives in this space, and propose initial ideas for regenerative action.

To convey your ideas, you are required to develop a 60-second video pitch that covers the following:

Part 1: Understanding the sustainability problem/opportunity

●    Identify a sustainability problem/opportunity in a specific location/place (e.g. Sydney, Newcastle, rural NSW, Victoria or any other town, city or region in Australia).

●    Analyse the underlying causes/reasons for the specific sustainability problem.

Part 2: Critiquing and celebrating existing practices

●    Critique the current/existing practices operating in this domain that are contributing to the problem (e.g. daily habits, actions of corporations, government, civil society)

●    Evaluate current and emerging innovative/effective organisations/initiatives that are helping to address this problem

o Note: the existing organisations and initiatives may be operating beyond the specific location/place of interest

Part 3: Generating ideas for regenerative action

●    Discuss potential novel early ideas of yours of how you might implement regenerative action to address these sustainability problems/opportunities in place.

You need to upload your video by midnight on Sunday 24th August

Note: We are not examining your video production skills in this assessment. We are interested in your critical thinking in identifying a problem/opportunity space and your persuasiveness in communicating potential ideas in the video.

How to go about it

Part 1: Understanding the sustainability problem/opportunity

●    To identify a sustainability problem/opportunity, reflect on which solutions and action areas resonated with you when watching the Regenerating Australia film.

o You might want to explore the following sources for more inspiration on sustainability problems/opportunities/solutions:

.      Regenerators Action Areas -https://theregenerators.org/action-areas/

.      Project Regeneration – Nexus -https://regeneration.org/nexus

.      Project Regeneration – Cascade of Solutions -

https://regeneration.org/solutions

o Think about which action areas, problems, and opportunities align with your passions, interests, and knowledge.

●    To identify a specific location/place, reflect on the discussions and activities in the

opening days of the subject that encouraged you to explore your connection to place.

o Which locations/places/communities do you feel an attachment/connection to?

●    To analyse the underlying causes/reasons for the specific sustainability problem, you might begin with a root cause mapping activity similar to the one we did in the first tutorial.

o You should also explore a range of sources (academic articles, industry

reports, newspaper articles) to articulate some of the underlying causes of the sustainability problem.

o  Note that given the global nature of sustainability problems, you may need to expand beyond this specific place/location in analysing the causes.

Part 2: Critiquing existing practices

● Note: the existing organisations and initiatives may be operating beyond the specific location/place of interest

●    To assess the practices of existing organisations/initiatives, you should research who some of the main actors are in the sustainability problem/opportunity space you have identified.

o  Reflect on how the actions of specific industries, corporations, organisations or communities are contributing to this problem.

o Some useful starting points might be:

.      The Carbon Majors database -https://climateaccountability.org/carbon- majors/

.      The Corporate Human Rights Benchmark -

https://www.worldbenchmarkingalliance.org/publication/chrb/companies /

.      The Sustainable Development Report rankings -

https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/rankings

o When critiquing practices of existing organisations/initiatives, think about how the differences/disconnects between talk and action.

.      Explore whether there are misalignments between what organisations say they will do about a sustainability problem and what they are actually doing.

.      Reflect on how the existing organisations/initiatives might benefit from the current unsustainable practices.

.      Are there aspects of their work that are good? Is there nuance to your critique?

●    To evaluate current and emerging innovative/effective organisations and initiatives, you should research inspiring examples of new approaches to tackling the problem.

o Similar to part one, you might find some interesting ideas here:

.      Regenerators Stories -https://theregenerators.org/stories/

.      The Key players listed on the Project Regeneration – Nexus -

https://regeneration.org/nexus

o Additional sources include:

.      Corporate Knights ranking -

https://www.corporateknights.com/rankings/global-100-rankings/2023- global-100-rankings/

.      B Corporation listing -https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/find-a-b-corp/

.      The Climate Change give lists -

https://www.australianphilanthropicservices.com.au/give-list-climate- change/

o When evaluating these innovative/effective organisations and initiatives, reflect on what makes them different to the unsustainable organisations/initiatives you identified.

o Also, think about what these innovative/effective organisations and initiatives are doing to shape the broader contexts/systems within which they operating.

Part 3: Generating ideas for regenerative action

●    Based on your analysis in Parts 1 and 2 you should identify potential opportunities and ideas for regenerative action in the specific location/place you feel connected to

●    The resources listed in the previous section provide some inspiration for ideas that are being rolled out in other parts of the world that could be brought into new locations and spaces.

●    You should discuss how your potential ideas might work in this particular  location/space and how they might contribute to overcoming (or reversing) sustainability problems.

Assessment criteria

In this task you will be assessed according to the following criteria:

Submission requirements for Assessment 1

1.   You will need to upload your 60-second video as a video file to Canvas and to the Shared Drive

-     It is your responsibility to ensure that the file is accessible to markers.

-     The link to the Shared Drive will be shared with you by your tutor

2.   The submissions should be uploaded to the Shared Drive and Canvas no later than midnight Sunday 24th August

3.   Submit the video file with the following naming convention:

TutorLastName_SID_YourLastName_VideoPitch

Late and incomplete assignments

Assignments submitted after the due time/date will incur late penalties. Work submitted up to 7 days* later than the deadline should have either approval from their Subject Coordinator prior  to the due date (with appropriate Doctor’s certificate or equivalent documentation) or a special consideration, otherwise the Subject Coordinator will apply the following penalties:

●    Up to 1 day late (24 hours from the specified deadline): 5% late reduction

●    Up to 2 days late: 10% late reduction

●    Up to 3 days late: 15% late reduction

●    Up to 4 days late: 20% late reduction

●    Up to 5 days late: 25% late reduction

●    Up to 6 days late: 30% late reduction

●    Up to 7 days late: 35% late reduction

●    Over 7 days late: NOT ACCEPTED

●    The 5% per day penalty is applied to the mark that would have been received if the submission had been on time.

●    Any work submitted after 7 days late will need a Special Consideration document to be accepted for assessment.

●    Students cannot expect to receive verbal or written feedback for late work.

* If equipment or software is not available for students to complete a late submission, then the Subject Coordinator may decide to exclude weekends from the number of days late in calculating the penalty.