How is the experience of writing a master's thesis at Lotus?

Wendy Bernal Rodriguez ?is a student in Environmental and Resource Management at the Brandenburg University of Technology. She finished her internship at Lotus Tech Innovation Centre (LTIC) and is doing a master's thesis with the company. What follows is an interview with her. Let's see what she thinks of the experience.

Q: Before your master's thesis, you have done an internship at Lotus. How do you feel about this experience?

Wendy: I would say it was really interesting. I worked as an intern in product sustainability. It was new for me because at the beginning I worked in another sector, but working in product sustainability gave me very good insights into how it works in the automobile industry. So I learned a lot. It was pretty good to be part of this internship.

Q: What were the main tasks of this internship?

Wendy: I was supporting a global footprint project, looking into carbon emissions to see what kind of information is needed for this process. I was also doing some research to know which regulations are required to comply with sustainability or environmental topics. On top of that, we also had some CSR topics.

Q: Could you describe the working environment at LTIC?

Wendy: It is quite a multicultural environment. I come from Columbia. My supervisor? Jan Parakenings ?is German. We also have many colleagues who come from Brazil, Portugal, Romania and so on. They were really kind and always tried to explain things to bring me into the team. They have different perspectives, so this is giving you more knowledge about how people from different cultures think.

Q: Let’s talk about your thesis. How did you find the thesis topic at LTIC?

Wendy: During my internship, I was looking into the latest regulatory framework in Europe. In next year there is a specific regulation which is new for LTIC. Then I decided to combine it with CSR reporting or corporate sustainability as my research thesis.

Q: What are your thesis topic and research methods?

Wendy: It’s Corporate sustainability reporting in the automotive sector within the EU, with an exploration of the effects of the new EU reporting directive on the corporate report. The idea is to analyze these topics inside the luxury automotive industry and especially to make the analysis of the case study at LTIC. And we developed a methodology in which we make a literature review and then have some quantitative analysis from making benchmarking about regulations from other companies. I was also doing interviews with some experts in sustainability fields.

Q: How many supports are you getting from colleagues during your research?

Wendy: I think it is really important. For example, Jan was the person who contacted all the experts for the interviews. He was also looking into my thesis to give me improvement suggestions. He supported me a lot, from the research itself to the writing and everything.

We wish Wendy the best of luck with her thesis work and hope Lotus has been a great experience for her. LTIC regularly has positions available for interns/ working students. If you are interested in this, you can visit our?career page?for the latest job openings.