This paper goes through solar energy and what uses it has. It is also a guide in the choice of solar collectors forthe real estate that I have drawn for the thesis work.Solar energy is a renewable source of energy from the Sun's light. Energy can be used to produce both heat andelectricity through solar collectors and solar cells. Some of the benefits of solar energy is that it is completely freeto extract, environmentally friendly and virtually maintenance-free. Disadvantages are that the technology isexpensive, does not cover the entire energy needs and takes a long time until it pays.

The Swedish Welfare Act § 4 says that "Animals must be kept and cared for in a good environment for animals and in such a way that promotes their health and allow them to behave naturally." Pigs in the wild spend 80% of their waking hours walking around and rooting for food, eating and exploring their environment with its snout. Fattening pigs in commercial farms spend 80% lying doing nothing. A lactating sow is lying down most of her day, and only 10-20% of the body surface is in contact with the floor, so the pressure is high on these spots. Piglets lie down and paddle with their legs, with high liquid content in the tissues, several times an hour, to stimulate and massage the sow's udder. In the existing system, these individuals are held more often on floors that are anything but inviting to sleep on.

The sun is a huge energy source with great potential of providing energy to the heating of homes and other buildings in an environmentally sustainable manner. In order to provide buildings with energy from the sun it is necessary to transfer the energy supply over time to when the demand arises. By storing the heat in a seasonal storage, solar energy from the summer can be used in the winter when the demand for heating is greatest.Today's existing plants are mainly in Europe and particularly in Germany. These facilities are designed to supply heat demands greater than 400 MWh and covers about 40-50 % of this need which consists of energy for space heating and domestic hot water. How much of the heat demand that is covered, the solar fraction, is partly due to losses from the storage which in turn is connected to the surface area of the storage.

This thesis is made by Carl Persson and Alejandro Saavedra for Gryaab. Gryaab is Gothenburg?s water processing plant and produces about 60 GWh biogas annually with a flow around 1150 Nm3/h. Gryaab wants to research their possibilities to become independent with electrical energy and the possibilities to enrich, upgrade biogas. The use of methane rich gases like biogas and natural gas is today low in Sweden compared to major parts of the world.

Our environment affect us, not least gardens. By practising the ancient Chinese art feng shui, one could find tools how to create harmony and balance in gardens. By paying attention to different energies working with colours, shapes and materials one can create a nice garden with good feng shui. The philosophy, however, includes much more than what plants or what hard materials to choose in the garden. It describes different energies, the movement of energies, which we can learn to live in harmony with.

If one looks at physical planning in Sweden today one can see that while talking about densification of existing development, reduced emissions and careful use of important land, urban sprawl is a fact with development of sheer residential districts in the urban edges and shopping malls in each and every municipality. As sustainable development is an essential goal for physical planning to strive towards, it is worth questioning if the direction of today?s planning will lead to the goal. A sustainable development can be seen as an obvious to goal aim at. In reality the aim means a hard and complex work.

This master thesis is a study of the Swedish hydropower capacity to balance wind power. The Swedish government has decided that it should be possible to produce 30 TWh from wind power in the year 2020. The Swedish municipalities have to have plans for wind power plants with total yearly generation of 30 TWh. Wind power is an variable energy source that needs to be balanced by other energy sources. In Sweden the Swedish hydropower can be used for balancing a large scale introduction of wind power.

Due to the forest industry downsizing, many communities in rural forest regions in Canada and Sweden are facing problems to survive. In order to create community sustainability, resilience and well-being in remote forest regions, the view on the forest resources has shifted towards multiple use, through the concept of sustainable forest management (SFM). Beside the economic and ecological elements of sustainability, the social forest values are needed, contributing to the human well-being, local participation, stakeholder collaboration, human rights and cultural connection. In this thesis the embodiment of the social component of SFM within Prince Albert Model Forest (Canada), and Vilhelmina Model Forest (Sweden) will be examined. Being partners and facing similar challenges as rural boreal forest regions, the two model forests are compared through analysis of projects and activities, conducted interviews and organization documents. Looking at projects mentioned as successful by the interviewees, they all have elements from the social values of SFM. The direction can be explained by the introduction of the Forest Communities Program in Canada, demanding the Model Forests to work towards community stability and resilience, the Model Forest organization concept itself and the way global focus are increasing around social forest values. In the future, it may be important that the role of the MFs enable some kind of political authorization and legitimacy in order to improve conflict solving and indigenous rights equality.

The purpose of this report is to compile and examine the cost of renovation of moisture-damaged bathrooms, to derive a target price. The target price can then be used by insurance companies to estimate the ultimate cost of future bathroom renovations.       The method is based on the compilation and comparison of the cost of repairs of previous water damage in bathrooms. The calculations compiled based on repair estimates for different insurance losses from one of the leading insurance companies in Sweden.       The result shows the average price per square meter of floor area for different sizes of bathrooms. The average price is the basis for the estimate of future renovation costs of bathrooms. The results further show that the bathroom finishes, area and the distance between the entrepreneur and the location of the renovation have great impact on the final repairing cost.

Today endless choices exist for a customer in the grocery store in terms of information, products, brands and prices. Consequently, it is important for retailers and brand owners to gain insights in how they can manage to break through the clutter to reach the customer. Displays that include some kind of motion element are assumed to possess an attention grabbing ability, which is a necessary first step in influencing the customer?s decision making. Therefore we have explored whether so called dynamic displays are efficient in grabbing attention and influencing customer behaviour.

Bakgrund och problem: Under de senaste 20 åren har en global oro växt kring konsumtionens påverkan på miljön. Faktorer som den globala uppvärmningen, hål i ozonlagret samt katastrofer som Tjernobyl var några av drivkrafterna. Historiskt börjar nu den gröna marknadsföringen att framträda på marknaden. Den delades in i tre faser varav en fas representerar marknadsföring av miljövänliga produkter, designade för att främja en hållbar konsumtion (Mishra & Sharmra, 2012). Det är dock under 2000-talet som konsumenternas miljömedvetenhet leder till en ekologisk trend och livsstil.

The purpose of this study is to further develop the understanding of Nextopia, the belief that the next product will always be better, and the effects it has on Word of mouth, both oral (WOM) and electronic (eWOM), and investigate possible causes of this effect. This has been made through an experimental study of responses to two mineral water ads, with a manipulated time frame. First, this thesis supports the fact that there is a general Nextopia-effect on customers being exposed to a future product, which makes them evaluating the product higher in terms of feelings, attitude and intention. Further this study shows that there is also a Nextopia-effect on WOM and eWOM, by customers being more likely to recommend a future product rather than a current one. This propensity to recommend the product also has a relationship with responsibility, which correlates much stronger with WOM than eWOM.

Studien innefattar en jämförelse av beteende och attityder till miljöfrågor mellan studenter från Jönköping, en individualistisk kultur, och Quito, en kollektivistisk kultur. Syftet är att undersöka om studenternas kulturella och sociodemografiska bakgrund återspeglar skillnader i attityd och beteende till miljöfrågor. Studien använder sig av en enkätundersökning som är baserad på tidigare forskning, det ekologiska fotavtrycket och mätinstrumentet New Ecological Paradigm skalan. Resultatet diskuteras utifrån tidigare forskning inom området med utgångspunkt från teorier om individualistisk och kollektivistisk kultur och Theory of Planned Behavior.Studien visar att det finns signifikanta skillnader i studenternas angivna miljövänliga beteende inom ett flertal områden, exempelvis studenternas angivna resvanor och hur mycket de återvinner. Resultatet tyder på att det finns förklaringar till skillnaderna i de sociodemografiska faktorerna.

People in today?s society are becoming more and more aware of how important it is to use energy as efficiently as possible. This is clearly noticeable by an increase in home produced heat with e.g. solar panels or heat pumps heating systems. These changing customer demands forces district heating technology to be redesigned, which is why there is an ongoing research regarding the next generation of district heating - low temperature district heating (LTDH).

The design of buildings is today considered to be crucial for obtaining sustainable development. Research concerning sustainable building is considered to be a Swedish area of strength and development projects as Hammarby Sjöstad and Bo01 are often pointed out as Swedish prime examples of sustainable building. Some still argue though, that that these projects should not be presented as sustainable, due to its incompetence to meet their objectives. This contradiction has attracted my curiosity. By doing this study I hope to gain understanding about the difficulties Bo01 and Hammarby Sjöstad are surrounded with and its significance for sustainable development.