Sustainability is not an add-on in VCE Chemistry. It is embedded deliberately across Units 3 and 4, and it appears in the exam not as an opinion prompt, but as a scientific evaluation task. The 2024 Chemistry exam makes this very clear, yet the Examiner’s Report shows that many students continue to approach sustainability questions in ways that are misaligned with how marks are awarded.
The result is a familiar pattern. Students write confidently, often at length, yet receive limited credit because their responses are descriptive, moral, or generic rather than chemical and evaluative.
Sustainability questions are not asking whether something is “good for the environment”
One of the clearest messages in the 2024 Examiner’s Report is that sustainability questions are not value judgements. Students are not being assessed on whether they support renewable energy, green chemistry, or alternative fuels.
They are being assessed on whether they can evaluate a chemical process or system using sustainability criteria grounded in chemistry.
Responses that framed sustainability in terms of general environmental benefit, without reference to chemical efficiency, resource use, energy demand, or waste generation, were frequently capped.
In other words, saying that a process is more sustainable because it is better for the environment is not enough. The exam requires students to explain why in chemical terms.
The exam rewards trade-off analysis, not absolute claims
A recurring weakness identified in the 2024 Examiner’s Report was students presenting sustainability as a binary concept. Many responses implied that one process was simply sustainable and another was not.
High-scoring responses did not do this. They acknowledged trade-offs.
For example, students who discussed alternative energy sources effectively recognised that reduced emissions may come with increased energy input, higher costs, or reliance on scarce materials. These responses demonstrated chemical reasoning rather than advocacy.
The exam consistently rewards students who recognise that sustainability involves balancing competing chemical and resource considerations.
Students often ignore the chemical process itself
Another common issue is that students focus on the outcome of a process rather than the process itself.
In the 2024 exam, sustainability questions required students to consider reaction conditions, catalysts, energy requirements, and by-products. Many students discussed end products only, without addressing how those products were obtained.
Examiner’s Reports note that responses which failed to engage with the chemical pathway were often capped, even if the conclusion was reasonable.
Sustainability in Chemistry is about how reactions occur, not just what they produce.
Misuse of sustainability language caps marks quickly
Students frequently use sustainability terms imprecisely.
Words such as renewable, efficient, clean, or environmentally friendly appear often in responses but are rarely defined or justified. The 2024 Examiner’s Report highlights that such language, when unsupported by chemical explanation, does not attract marks.
For example, stating that a process is efficient without specifying whether this refers to atom economy, energy efficiency, or yield leaves the response ambiguous. Chemistry marking does not reward ambiguity.
High-scoring responses consistently tied sustainability claims to specific chemical concepts such as atom economy, reaction yield, energy input, or waste minimisation.
Atom economy is often named but not applied
Atom economy appears frequently in sustainability discussions, yet it is often misused.
In the 2024 exam, many students correctly stated that a process had a high or low atom economy but failed to explain what that meant in context. Others calculated atom economy correctly but did not link it to sustainability.
The Examiner’s Report indicates that atom economy alone does not guarantee sustainability. Students needed to explain how it contributed to reduced waste or improved resource efficiency within the specific process described.
Responses that treated atom economy as a standalone justification were often capped.
Energy considerations are commonly oversimplified
Energy use is another area where students lose marks.
Many responses assumed that lower temperature or lower pressure automatically meant greater sustainability. While this can be true, the exam requires justification.
In the 2024 paper, some processes operated under mild conditions but required large energy inputs elsewhere, such as in material preparation or purification. Students who ignored these factors presented incomplete evaluations.
High-scoring responses demonstrated that sustainability requires consideration of total energy demand, not just reaction conditions.
Why sustainability questions feel harder than they are
Sustainability questions feel difficult because they do not have a single correct answer. This leads students to believe that writing more will improve their chances.
Examiner’s Reports show the opposite. Precision matters more than volume.
Students who focused on one or two well-explained sustainability factors often outperformed those who listed many superficial points.
The difficulty lies not in the chemistry, but in deciding what is relevant.
What full-mark sustainability responses consistently did
Across the 2024 exam, full-mark responses shared a clear structure.
They:
- identified the relevant sustainability criterion
- linked it directly to the chemical process described
- explained the implication for resource use, energy demand, or waste
- acknowledged limitations or trade-offs where appropriate
These responses were concise and chemically grounded.
How students should be practising sustainability questions
Improvement in this area comes from practising evaluation, not memorisation.
Students should practise:
- identifying which sustainability criteria apply to a given process
- explaining sustainability using chemical concepts, not general statements
- comparing processes using explicit chemical reasoning
- avoiding unsupported value judgements
This aligns directly with how marks are allocated in the exam.
An ATAR STAR perspective
ATAR STAR treats sustainability as an application skill, not a content dot point. Students are trained to evaluate chemical processes the way assessors expect, using the same reasoning patterns seen in high-scoring exam responses.
This approach benefits students across the spectrum. Strong students refine their evaluations. Developing students learn how to structure answers without resorting to vague language.
In VCE Chemistry, sustainability is not about saying the right thing. It is about explaining the chemistry behind it.