The energy consumption continues to increase as the use of electronics and energy consuming equipment increases. The use of fossil fuels has to be phased out for this to be sustainable in the long run while the use of renewable energy continues to increase. A renewable energy source is solar energy but the production of heat and electricity are today very expensive compared to other energy sources and an important task for the solar energy market to grow is therefore to minimize the production cost of the solar collectors while increasing its efficiency to produce heat and/or electricity. One way to convert solar energy into heat is by using solar collectors and electricity can be produced by utilizing the produced heat, or by applying solar cells.This thesis aims to recommend a reflective material for the next generation solar collectors from Absolicon and to recommend a commercially available coating for the receiver tube of the solar collector. A market study has been carried out to investigate the cost-related aspects along with the optical and durable aspects for the optical material of the solar collector.

Approximately 60 million cubic meters of round wood are transported every year with trucks in Sweden and stand for 15 % of all truck transportation in the country. The big amount that is transported results in many haulage companies works in different parts of the country with different conditions to get a good flow on their transports. Today the transport pricing is very general and the payment consists of the unit round wood they are transporting and the distance of the transport. The purpose of this study were, from the freighter and the haulage company?s perspective, try to find ways to change the today applied transport pricing to more differentiated and compare them to historic payment of transportation.

För att minska energiförbrukningen i Sverige krävs att befintliga byggnaderen ergieffektiviseras. Det finns även befintliga lokaler i landet som är i behov av en sänkt energiförbrukning. Det sker ständigt initiativ kring arbete med energieffektivisering av framför allt bostadshus. När energiförbrukning ska sänkas i industrilokaler läggs fokus på att minska energiåtgången i de invändigaprocesserna men inte i det omgivande klimatskalet där transmissionen utgör en stor del av energiläckaget. Syftet med arbetet är att öka kunskapen om energieffektiva åtgärder vid renovering av klimatskal hos industrilokaler.

One of the biggest challenges in the human history is to prevent environmental pollution. Everybody has an indirect or direct influence on the environment through his or her consumption. The stakeholders are not just interested in price and quality, they are also interested in the circumstances of production and how this affects the environment. By taking environmental concern in public procurement it is possible to speed up the environmental adjustment of services and products. Environmental awareness has become more and more self evident in the environmental work.

Stump wood was used between 1850 and 1950 for production of tar and as firewood. In the 1950s the use decreased because of the introduction of the cheap fossil oil. In the 1970s stump wood became an interesting issue again as a raw material for the pulp industry. Stump lifting has today become a possible source for bioenergy. The objectives with this study were to investigate the productivity of stump lifting and stump extraction, and to analyse the economy.

Hammarby Sjöstad is a new district in southern Stockholm. A main objective with the Sjöstad project was to halve the environmental impact compared to other construction work. The environmental goals involve a halved water consumption rate, a local treatment of storm water and trials aiming to extract nutrients from the waste water. Sjöstadsverket is an experimental treatment plant used for testing new treatment processes for domestic waste water from Hammarby Sjöstad. The results are to be compared with the conventional process used at Henrikdals treatment plant today.

Uranium (U) is a naturally occurring component in bedrock and under the "right" conditions it can dissolve and move into the ground water. Since many people in Sweden depend on drilled wells as their main drinking water supply, they may be exposed to the uranium in the water. Radioactive radiation is not the major concern associated with naturally occurring uranium. It is rather the chemical properties of uranium that make it a potential danger to human health. Uranium is proven to have toxic effects with respect to the functioning of the kidneys.

Africa is expected to go through a rapid urbanization over the next four decades and the demand for food is increasing in the rapidly growing urban and peri-urban (UPU) areas. Keeping livestock in urban areas is in particular associated with health hazards. This is due to close interaction between humans and animals, and it has been shown that zoonotic diseases are increasing in urban areas. The benefits of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) are related to improved food security, in particular among low-income groups. Apart from the negative public health impact of zoonotic diseases, animal disease could have a devastating impact on the economy and food security of many households in these areas. In the present study, three important endemic diseases, including brucellosis, salmonellosis and Bovine viral diarrhea (BVD), were analyzed in regard to seroprevalence and risk factors.

In this report a study is carried out with the aim to identify added values of EPC projects implemented in schools in order to increase the interest of EPC projects on the market. The report examines how the planned maintenance, supervision, maintenance and corrective maintenance is affected, how insurance premiums and terms are affected, the indoor environment and how the tasks of the operating staff is changing. A literature study of energy savings, energy use in schools, maintenance and insurance as well as how energy efficiency improvements are related to the Swedish environmental objectives has been made. Visits were carried out in Ludvika, interviews were also carried out with operation technicians and local strategists in Ludvika as well as employees of insurance companies.Schools often have neglected maintenance and problems with ventilation and indoor environment. Schools also have a large energy saving potential due to their low utilization, mainly because they are empty parts of the year.

In this report a study is carried out with the aim to identify added values of EPC projects implemented in schools in order to increase the interest of EPC projects on the market. The report examines how the planned maintenance, supervision, maintenance and corrective maintenance is affected, how insurance premiums and terms are affected, the indoor environment and how the tasks of the operating staff is changing. A literature study of energy savings, energy use in schools, maintenance and insurance as well as how energy efficiency improvements are related to the Swedish environmental objectives has been made. Visits were carried out in Ludvika, interviews were also carried out with operation technicians and local strategists in Ludvika as well as employees of insurance companies.Schools often have neglected maintenance and problems with ventilation and indoor environment. Schools also have a large energy saving potential due to their low utilization, mainly because they are empty parts of the year.

 Since the 28thof May the project to develop an internal Innovation Leadership Program (ILP)on Accenture has been running and came to an end in November the same year. The taskwas formed into a master thesis and given to two students at the Royal Institute ofTechnology in Sweden.Since the start the content and structure of the ILP has been established based on the resultsof a theoretical study, a gap analysis and an external and internal benchmarking. The theoreticalstudy focused on articles, books and lectures about innovation, creativity and pedagogy. Subjectssuch as leadership, motivation, reflection and coaching were studied as well, but in a smaller scale.The gap analysis consisted of eleven interviews with people from different career levels withinAccenture and the goal was to establish the view of innovation and creativity among the employees.The interviews also asked about the knowledge the participants had about Technology Lab in orderto get insight of how to improve their communication and cooperation with people in client projects.Internally a similar program was studied called Minority Leadership program, whom will not bedescribed further in this report, to get inspiration. The external benchmarking was conducted onStanford and was very successful.

In this report a study is carried out with the aim to identify added values of EPC projects implemented in schools in order to increase the interest of EPC projects on the market. The report examines how the planned maintenance, supervision, maintenance and corrective maintenance is affected, how insurance premiums and terms are affected, the indoor environment and how the tasks of the operating staff is changing. A literature study of energy savings, energy use in schools, maintenance and insurance as well as how energy efficiency improvements are related to the Swedish environmental objectives has been made. Visits were carried out in Ludvika, interviews were also carried out with operation technicians and local strategists in Ludvika as well as employees of insurance companies.Schools often have neglected maintenance and problems with ventilation and indoor environment. Schools also have a large energy saving potential due to their low utilization, mainly because they are empty parts of the year.

Increasing the use of biofuels is an important part of achieving the EU?s target of 10 percent renewable energy in the transport sector. However, the competition between biofuels and food production is an ongoing concern. Also, several studies have indicated a significantly higher climate impact than was earlier estimated, due to emissions from land use. In Sweden, both the use and production of biofuels from crops have increased substantially during the last decade. The purpose of this project is first to present an overview of the Swedish land use in all sectors.

Vi konsumerar allt mer i en allt högre hastighet och barnfamiljerna är en målgrupp som marknadens aktörer gärna vill knyta till sina produkter. Funderar vi över hur vi handlar, är det hedonistiska eller moraliska faktorer som avgör eller sker det helt enkelt på rutin och i invanda mönster? Är förstagångsmamman mer intresserad av estetiskt tilltalande produkter eller anser hon att etiska frågor som miljö och arbetsförhållanden är viktigare när det gäller produkter till barn?Syftet är att inhämta information från förstagångsmammor avseende deras konsumtionsmönster när det gäller barnprodukter som kläder, leksaker och blöjor. Tanken är att få insikt i hur de väljer sina varor, om det är etiska eller estetiska faktorer som är avgörande eller kanske en kombination av de två.Undersökningen görs med teoretisk utgångspunkt i Pierre Bourdieus teorier om kapital med grund i respondenternas socioekonomiska grupptillhörighet. Efter litteraturgenomgång i syfte att hitta relevant material har undersökningen sedan genomförts med semistrukturerade intervjuer.

In today?s society a large focus is put on energy systems and how our energy systems are built up. In order to make sure that we in the future still can enjoy the living standards that we are used to today, Sweden and EU have made a number of decisions on making our energy system more energy efficient and consequently reduce the usage of energy resources. By 2020 the European Union should have reduced its energy consumption by 20 % compared to 1990?s level, and by 2050, 50%.