SU902 – Concepts and Theories of Sustainability Assessment #2 Guidance 2026 | Strathclyde

Assessment #2 Guidance

Your Task

In Assessment 1, your group presentation analysed a sustainability challenge from a case study, you identified a specific problem (or sub-set of problems) within the challenge, and proposed an intervention. In this second assessment, you will build on that work individually. Your task is to explore how your proposed intervention could be applied in practice, critically reflecting potential pathways of change.
To help you do this, you will use the Three Horizons Framework. You will use this framework to help reflect on your group’s original challenge and intervention proposal and to explore and detail possible transition pathways toward longer-term sustainability.
The Three Horizons Framework is a tool for exploring how current systems (H1) evolve through innovations (H2) towards new paradigms (H3). It emphasises dynamic relationships and co-existence between horizons rather than linear replacement models. As a framework, it helps us to think about the future of a system and how change both occurs and is influenced.
You will individually write a report (2000-words) to discuss this application. Use the details below, of the main activities, plus your own research to help you develop your report:

Introduction and Recap

• Briefly re-summarise your case study and sustainability challenge from Assessment

1. This should be summarised in your own words, do not copy and paste work from the group presentation. Ensure you outline the environmental, social and economic dimensions of your challenge.

• State your group’s proposed intervention, refined as needed based on feedback from Assessment 1. Consider a figure to help illustrate or explain your idea.
• Introduce and discuss any; critical information, background, theoretical framings (Three Horizons Framework, SDGs etc) to the reader. Use class material to support your own independent reading and study to do this.
• NB: you should apply feedback (written, verbal or via awarded marks) to improve your work from the group presentation.
  Defining your system, develop Three Horizons Framework
• Define the ‘system’ in which your intervention sits. (System = interconnected elements, norms, actors, rules etc. which produce an outcome over time). This ‘system’ is a product of both your case study focus, and the local-global context. There is no prescribed set of criteria to define ‘a system’, use your judgement on what components (environmental, social and economic) are worth including.
• Use the Three Horizons Framework to help you think about the future of your ‘system’, you may want to begin sketching out and labelling your own graph at this point (tip: iteration is key, you will learn more as you work on this assessment –come back and update your graph as needed). Analyse how your intervention relates to the wider system you have defined and the three horizons. While you may identify the horizon your intervention most closely aligns with (e.g. it represents an H1 optimisation), remember that all three horizons often coexist and interact within real-world contexts.
• If your intervention most closely aligns with H1, discuss how it optimises or extends the current system, then examine emerging H2– and H2+ innovations that might challenge or reshape it, and what a longer-term H3 future might involve.
• If your intervention is positioned in H2, evaluate how it connects back to the dominant H1 structures that keep the current system in place, and identify what forces, innovations, or mindsets might accelerate or constrain its progress toward H3.
• If your work represents an H3 vision, consider how current H1 and H2 dynamics may resist or help bridge toward your vision, identifying points of tension, leverage, and interdependence across horizons.

Discuss your graph

Using your Three Horizons map/graph that you have created, you may want to discuss the following:

• The three horizons – what are the H1, H2 and H3 visions you have thought about?
• Identify and discuss the following: how your horizons connect or are interdependent, critically reflect on any drivers, barriers, stakeholders, levers and leverage points, any interlinkages, and possible alternative futures as appropriate. In short: what is going to support your, and other, transformations occur and what might stop it?
• Critically evaluate synergies, conflicts, and trade-offs with relevant SDGs for your proposal.
• Discuss risks of unintended consequences across environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability within your context.
• Discuss uncertainties or assumptions of your analysis.
• Analyse how your intervention could be applied in your case study context.

Suggest a Transformation pathway

Using your analysis and development of the Three Horizons Graph for you case study and context – can you identify a pathway forward for a sustainability transformation? Outline this including any relevant information on how it might occur, who is involved, timelines, drivers or inhibitors (etc).

Example Three Horizons Map (simplified for example purposes)

Common report questions:

• Referencing: use the Harvard refencing system (details can be found on the library website).
• Word count: The word count is an upper threshold, not a target per se. Title page, table of contents, tables of figures, figures and figure captions, references are NOT included towards the word count. Use your figures wisely!
• Writing style – reports are typically written in the third person. They are fact filled and well structured. You are encouraged to include: title page, table of contents, constituent parts for the competition of your task, and a conclusions/summary as well as references. Use the marking scheme provided to help guide your work.

Tips for your report:

• There is no “correct horizon” for your intervention, or for mapping out the future. The important part for this assessment is the quality of your reasoning and critical thinking. As such, a beautiful diagram is not the ultimate goal. The map/graph is a tool to help you reflect and communicate your thinking - the quality of your explanation and critical thinking is what matters most. Top tip: sketch out the graph(s) on paper a few times, use it to help you think – how steep should the curves be? When would that change likely occur? How low does prevalence of H1 go? But also useful information such as the key components of each horizon, what might be examples of H2- or H2+ transitions (etc.).
• For each horizon, note that there will forces that help drive change (e.g. innovation, policy, social movements, incentives, funding, skills) and then also barriers that hold change back (e.g. vested interests, finance, governance lock-in, scepticism). This assessment is not just about imagining a theoretical change but reflecting on how that change will come about. Can you identify the drivers and barriers – are they environmental, social, economic (a combination?) – and how does your intervention plan help capitalise on or overcome these?
• Don’t forget your context: your local challenge context is still very important. You may want to discuss how the local challenge connects into the global challenge(s) – are these interlinked in any way?
• Keep Assessment 1’s feedback in mind but avoid repeating the group presentation in detail. Take on board feedback and iterate your thinking.
• Use your Three Horizons graph as a central organising tool: it should illustrate your analysis, not just decorate it at the end. As such, make sure it is well presented and clear. Use it to help you structure your discussion section. Think about using appropriate labels, arrows, identifying markers etc.

Key Reading:

Sharpe, B., Hodgson, A., Leicester, G., Lyon, A., & Fazey, I. (2016). Three horizons: a pathways practice for transformation. Ecology and Society, 21(2). http://www.jstor.org/stable/26270405
Public Health Wales & Future Generations Commissioner for Wales (2020) Three Horizons: A Toolkit to Help You Think and Plan for the Long-Term. Cardiff: Public Health Wales NHS Trust. Available at: https://www.futuregenerations.wales/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/PHW-Three- Horizons_FINAL.pdf

Mark scheme