Coming soon
Sustainable Polymers Foundations
The first of three sustainable polymers micro-credentials, covering what polymers are and how they can be made and used more sustainably.
At a glance
- Time needed
- About 20 to 24 hours, at your own pace
- Level
- Beginner
- Who it is for
- High school and college students, and anyone new to polymers
- Prerequisites
- None.
- Format and what you need
- Online and self-paced; a web browser.
- Badge
- Sustainable Polymers Foundation digital badge
What you will be able to do
- Explain how polymer structure affects properties — and say which technical facts bear on a material choice and which do not.
- Distinguish bio-based, biodegradable and compostable — three claims that are routinely treated as one, and are not.
- Relate processing conditions to product performance — why the same polymer behaves differently depending on how it was made.
- Match a product to collection and treatment routes — and identify what in a design blocks recovery in practice.
- Compare sustainability information using a consistent function — a shared functional unit and a stated boundary, without which two figures cannot be compared at all.
- Screen candidate materials against performance, cost and recovery — and separate a supported claim from a marketed one.
How the course is organized
- Start Here — Course Orientation
- Module 1 — Polymer Fundamentals and Sustainability Concepts
- Module 2 — Renewable Feedstocks and Polymer Choices
- Module 3 — Processing and Product Performance
- Module 4 — Recycling and End of Life
- Module 5 — Life Cycle Thinking and Basic Metrics
- Module 6 — Applied Sustainable Material Selection (Guided Product Sustainability Case)
How to earn the badge
Work through Modules 1 to 6 in order and submit all six module quizzes. Each quiz question is worth one point and there are 100 points in total across the six quizzes, so the standard is 90 of those 100 points .
Attempts are unlimited and your highest score on each quiz is the one that counts, so a weak first attempt costs you nothing. The two surveys are not graded and do not affect the total — but please complete them, because the post-course survey is how the credential gets better.