Using the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module in Business Process and Systems (GB 310)

Ankita Srivastava, Bentley University

Course Description

This course introduces students to the concept of a business as an integrated set of business processes and associated systems designed to deliver value to customers. A business process is a set of activities that cuts across functional boundaries to achieve specific objectives. The course features several class exercises and assignments that will introduce students to basic approaches to process modeling, analysis, and improvement. Additionally, hands-on experience with SAP ERP, a market-leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) system will demonstrate how information systems can be used to integrate, manage, and support business processes. Learning about emerging technologies and basic infrastructure concepts will enable students to envision creative IT solutions to business problems. Throughout the course, students will learn how people, processes and systems can be integrated most effectively to achieve organizational objectives.

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Relationship of the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module to Your Course

This course is a 13-week course, and the BASICS module was implemented in the Fall 2023 semester. BASICS modules were implemented throughout the semester as and when seen fit with the curriculum topics. For example, we teach business process modeling in this course and show a video "life cycle of a T-shirt" in the introductory class. The video ends at the "consumption" of a product and is a perfect spot to talk about what happens after the consumption and introduce the concept of "circular economy."

Integrating the Module into Your Course

The course I teach and integrated the BASICS module with is GB 310, Business Process and Systems. This course is an introduction to technology and management information systems (MIS). We talk about processes, process improvement, and process modeling. The best part about this course is that it teaches students how you can use technology to improve business processes. When teaching that, we are teaching them how to remove elements in the waste. This BASICS module on waste management and the circular economy is just a direct extension of what we teach. In fact, one of the course contents that was provided, the life cycle of a t-shirt, is used in our course in the second class.

We show them this video of the lifecycle of a t-shirt, but we end that consumption. We are selling and then we are stopping. Now, I bring in the BASICS module. What happens after that? Once you are done with selling the t-shirt, then what? Of course, you have to prime students on the concept of circular economy, and why it's important. I think the younger generation cares about this already. Students were all ears, and they were taking this seriously. Based on the content we teach in this class, process improvement, process modeling, how to make data-driven business decisions, the elimination of waste and how you can make better business decisions that contribute to a circular economy, that ties in perfectly.

What Worked Well

It wasn't a challenge at all. It was just an extension. We talk about specific perspective. If you bring in the circular economy, it's just looking at the same process from a macro perspective and just expanding and extending it, so not a problem there at all. What worked well was that the content was just exact match. We are teaching students how to eliminate waste, how to use technology to be more efficient, effective and efficient. But then also, I added that another constraint that you do, you have to be effective and efficient but you have to also be sustainable. For example, one project was that we are car dealership. The student, he comes from a family business. They have a family business of car dealership. Now, how we are moving? Now, we are moving towards all electric vehicles, so I think car dealers...

We talked about the ideas that how you can make your business more sustainable, so I think car dealerships in future will play a very important role in coming up with ideas, in coming up with solutions that will help us address the problem of the car batteries. What do you do with them? How do you recycle? I think no manufacturer can... I mean, they can, but I think you could use the access and availability of local car dealerships to address that problem of used car batteries. We talked about that.

Food delivery, there's drone delivery. If you have a restaurant, we talked about there are available solutions that are quite innovative. There's a dinner plate precision and accuracy in delivering food products, so meals basically, restaurant deliveries and such. If you do that, you are taking cars out of the road. Again, just stuff like that. You are integrating technology, you're bringing in the technology, you are bringing in the mindset of sustainability and circular economy. Now, you decide, "Okay, what is my idea?" How we can improve an existing project or maybe come up with a new business idea, become an entrepreneur, create jobs? Because there's a big space in there, there's a big gap. We need more business ideas and we need more new business models that are sustainable. I think that's where Bentley business students should target.

Challenges and How They Were Addressed

The first challenge was that this is a very structured, coordinated course. I could not give them any homework. The waste audit, which could not be done all in class, was outside of classwork. I let them go early--I shortened the class duration and told them, "whatever time you're saving from this class, I'm leaving you guys early. You will use this time over next 24 hours to do your waste audits, because I don't want you guys to spend any more time than what is assigned, so to be fair with other sections." I modified everything else to be done in class. I converted all the projects and the work in survey form on Brightspace, and I gave them the class time. In class time, they sit and complete the survey, complete the exercise, and answer these questions.

The second challenge was the final survey. The first question in the final survey is, whether you understand systems perspective. Now, that was nowhere in the content, or at least I didn't see it. The circular economy concept is explained very well and everything else is explained very clearly in the student guide, but I did not find systems perspective anywhere. In the last class, I started with that. "Okay, what is systems perspective?" It's a very important theory. System perspective, in terms of information technology, IT project implementation, and systems theory is very important IS theory. I was wondering, if somebody is not familiar with systems perspective, then how will they figure out what it is? It's one of the questions that students need to answer. But if you don't tell them what it is, how will they answer? That needs to be included. Or if it's included somewhere, then it needs to be brought back into the student guide, so everything is in one place.

Some students were curious about how do you calculate the carbon footprint? What is the calculation? A company like Apple might claim to be carbon-neutral. Bot how do you claim that? Because if you are manufacturing something in China, there's a huge carbon footprint, carbon trail, in bringing the products back through sea back to the U.S. or anywhere in the world. It was a very perfect question to ask. I think if you're talking about carbon neutrality, sustainability and waste, and all of that circular economy, how you calculate carbon footprint is an important concept and should be included.

Student Response to the Module and Activities

They loved it. I am sure they loved it, and I think that will be evident. I had a couple students who said, "okay, this is perfect. This makes perfect sense." They were engaged, they were coming up with ideas. What I realized is that a lot of our students come from local business families in Boston suburban areas. For example, someone in their family has a landscaping business. They get a lot of big projects, and those plants come in plastic pots because there's no other option. We had a discussion about where to start. I told them to go research. I'm sure there are options and materials available that can replace those plastic pots that are just single-use plastic, and you can replace them with something that's sustainable and biodegradable. I think I also showed them the latest Department of Energy grant that's available. Come up with an idea, assemble a team, work with some people, apply for the grant. You never know, some local traditional businesses can be converted into something big. They were thinking. They enjoyed it. If nothing else, at least we talked about this issue and let them realize that it's their responsibility, it will be on their shoulders in the coming years once they graduate.

You are sitting at the table, and you are the one who has to make business decisions. That if there's a raw material that is sustainable versus a raw material that's non-sustainable, which one would you pick? That's an important business decision, so I think it's important to prime them and talk about this. I think they liked it, in one sentence.