LCAs

Governments can increase the usage of LCAs (Life Cycle Assessment) through following ways:

1. Promoting, funding and granting research activities on designing and improving LCA tools that are conducted in the universities and research institutions. This way increasing the number and the quality of the tools would be supported by the government, this way the use of LCAs will be indirectly icreased.
2. Coming up with environmental certificates that are similar in logic to quality control certificates or sustainability indexes. In other words globally accepted environmental standards for each product and supply chain can be formed. Assessing of environmental impact and environmental impact can be done gradually obligatory, and that would have a positive effect o increasing the usage.
3. After the above policy, there can be done additional regulations which have monetary impacts on the firms either like taxes or premiums according to the data and measurements gathered from the LCA tools.
4. For the assessment of environmental impacts through LCAs the government can support third party consulting companies which will act like auditors in the financial system. So this policy has to be well analyzed and designed in order to be fair and transparent.

I would like to choose the second way primarily. Creating an environmental quality standard would support the developments of LCAs at the same time broadening their usage.

Social Networks

1. BUSAS - Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Su Altı Sporları Klübü (Boğaziçi University Scuba Diving Club)

I am a member of BUSAS. Below is the flow chart of BUSAS. In the blue arrows you can see the human flow, and in the red arrows you can see the information, regulation, obligation and promotion arrows. Currently I am on the Experienced Divers (Passive) node.

BUSAS is a university club which offers scuba-diving and free-diving trainings, international certificates. The club reguarly organizes activities and long trips in which the main focus is diving. It is a relatively small network due to the fact that it is not open to outside world namely only Bogazici University are allowed to enter and take responsibilities in the organization. The finance and the administration of the club is managed internally, şn addition to that there is a unique activity in the club which is the club educates the members internally. There are no external professional paid trainers. The trainers are all students, assistants or professors (also former ones). BUSAS has an administrative and a social room in the campus, a storage room for the equipments in the campus, a mailing list, webpage, and a monthly published magazine called Derin (eng. Deep).

The dependency relations can be seen from the red arrows. During the club activities active experienced divers have responsibilities on the newcomers and they take directions both from the alumni and the current board. After some time experienced divers have the possibility to become a member of the board. If that is not possible than they retire. After becoming a passive experienced diver there is no turning back to the board, however most of the activities remain open to the passive divers.

Board is responsible for everything that happens in the club. Directly they give the trainings to the newcomers and experienced divers, they manage the administrative works, and  indirectly they regulate active experienced divers and manage the secondary administrative works.

After some time the board members become alumni. I this position if they choose to stay or live close to the club they continue holding their administrative rights, they are always welcome to the preceding boards' meetings and actually they can interfere the decisions.

2. BUMK - Bogazici University Music Club

This is network for all the students in my university which have interest in music. They do not necessearily have to be able to play a instrument. The society has a central board mechansism and a pack of sub divisions which have also their own boards and mechanisms. The general board is responsible for revising the planned organizations, controlling financial operations and representing the board. Sub divisions have the responsiblity of organizing events and activities. These might be concerts and festivals, or workshops and studio rentals. 

The club reaches the students rhrough these events during the year and intensively on the main area of the  campus at the beginning of the year. Inside the social network the relationships are maintained through social gatherings or mailing list. Also it is common to share announcements related with issues other than music like house rents, job opportunities, course advices etc.

Personally I use this social network to know and meet different musicians of my age. Also I use to have some students there but this time my students we can say.