Assessment Two – Social Change Strategy Report

Your task is to develop a strategy which is designed to ‘steer’ change around a particular sustainability challenge in order to improve sustainability outcomes. Your focus may be on a household, community, business and or government related practice(s). There is room for creativity and I suggest you discuss your topic and approach with me during tutorials or drop-in sessions.

Your report must have two parts.

Part 1: Rationale and Analysis of a Sustainability challenge

Your report should set out the rationale for the particular issue you are focusing on and why it is important. Analyse what constitutes / underpins the sustainability problem, identify the key issues / trends (with data), identify challenges for affecting social change. Identify where your strategy is focused in terms of sector / scale / type of actor and provide a rationale for why this is an appropriate focus. You will be expected to demonstrate your understanding and engagement with relevant literature to develop your analysis.

Part 2: Rationale for, and Design of, a Strategy for Change

From your analysis in Part 1, you need to provide a rationale for the design of your strategy for change which addresses the particular sustainability challenge (and its components / trends / issues) you identified. In designing your strategy for change you need to clearly link the analysis of the issue with the strategy you are proposing toward social change for sustainable outcomes. How does your strategy address the sustainability challenge you have selected? What important opportunities does your strategy harness? Why are your solutions better than other possible or existing solutions? What types of strategies are involved? Is it a multi-pronged strategy involving a range of approaches or scales (eg. educational, policy, regulatory, infrastructural, incentives etc.) and why? Who will be the actors involved, and why those ones? What role do these various actors play and how will they be co-ordinated (ie. governance)?

The strategy must be your own work i.e. the product of your own creativity and analysis. Your strategy report must not be simply an assessment or reproduction of another sustainability strategy. That said you may draw from existing approaches to address your chosen sustainability challenge and propose modifications or alternatives based on your critical analysis of the problem you are trying to address. You may draw on a number of sources to assist your analysis and strategy development including reviewing current literature, reports and other relevant strategies.