In today's society it has become increasingly important for organizations to take into account non-financial values. Sustainability reporting involves reporting the economic, social and environmental aspects of an organization's operations. The trend has been towards an all the more scrutinizing society with an increasing demand for transparency and translucency. A greater focus on environmental issues has also contributed to sustainability?s increasing importance as a topic.

The report describes an ecodesign thesis performed by the author at the ÅF EcoDesign Center. The basic idea of ecodesign is to develop products with a minimized environmental load, without neglecting other significant product aspects such as function and price. During the last couple of years the public interest in environmental friendly products has increased, which has made it possible for companies to make a profit from their investments in ecodesign. To meet the increasing market for ecodesign services ÅF started the ÅF EcoDesign Center, where the company has gathered all of their competence in ecodesign in order to help companies to become greener. The task was to develop a tool for an Eco Screening.

When the local authorities establish a plan for land use planning, they have to judge if the influence on the environment could be of such a grade that they have to make a special Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), following national laws and EU-directives. The laws for the process in Sweden is set by the Swedish Parliament, with advisory given by the central government authority, the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, Boverket. For EU, the laws is set by the European Parliament and the Council. The laws and directions for this process have been changed for Sweden in recent years, and the aim of this study was to compare the contents of three different Environmental Impact Assess¬ments to see if there has been any change in appearances and content in later years, as well as to see if different municipalities and authors have effect on the EIAs. According to different studies some of the EIA done are without insufficient focus on main environmental issues in the EIA, or even that some information is missing.

This report deals with activities that from a CSR perspective are considered to create a shared value for a medium-sized construction company in Sweden. The CSR definition used in the report is the European Commission?s since it reflects the valuecreating aspects of CSR, in contrast to the traditional philanthropic aspect of CSR.Companies in the building construction industry have difficulties identifying activities that create value in society and in the company. The aim with the project is to, from a CSR perspective, identify and evaluate value creating activities in a building construction company. The activities will be evaluated with respect to competitiveness and how they can be implemented into an organization.

The purpose of this dissertation is to describe and analyse the effects of tourism in developing countries and the attitudes and working methods of Swedish tour operators towards sustainable tourism. We have chosen to use a qualitative research according to a hermeneutical view. We have carried through in-depth interviews with eight tour operators. The theories have been divided into the effects of tourism and sustainable tourism goals which have social, economic and environmental starting points. The empiricism describes the work and activities of the tour operators and compiles the interview material divided into attitudes on tourism effects and responsibilities.

International reading comprehension studies, like PIRLS and PISA, state that the reading comprehension of Swedish students has decreased significantly since 2000. As a consequence, the National Agency of Education has made reading comprehension teaching a prioritised field in terms of further education for teachers. There has also been a change in Lgr 11, the national curriculum for compulsory school, where it is stated that teaching in reading strategies shall be a part of the central content throughout compulsory school. When the pupils reach upper secondary school level, reading comprehension education is no longer a part of the curriculum. Today, students at upper secondary school for individuals with learning disabilities currently share the same curriculum as the ordinary upper secondary school.

District heating covers most of the residential areas and industries in the twoneighbouring Swedish municipalities Nyköping and Oxelösund. In Nyköping,Vattenfall AB Värme produces heat in a bio-fuelled CHP plant. In Oxelösund,waste heat and use of waste gases from the steel production at SSABOxelösund is the basis in the district heating system.This report examines the environmental consequences of a connection betweenthe two district heating systems. A broad system approach is used and the focusis on environmental effects in the system.A system analysis has been performed on the result of simulations of differentheat and electricity production alternatives. The alternatives simulated wereone where Vattenfall Nyköping covers the base load in the joint district heatingsystem and two where the power plant at SSAB Oxelösund supplies the heatbase load.The conclusion in this report is that the consequences of connecting the twodistrict heating systems can be both positive and negative, depending onsystem boundaries and on the environmental focus.

The energy sector of modern time is currently faced with several challenges. These are both production oriented and environmental oriented in nature. The energy of the future is intended to support an increasing demand while at the same time reduce its environmental affection. This stresses a development towards production methods of renewable energy. Among the existing methods, biogas is presented as an attractive alternative.

This thesis was commissioned by Tekniska verken, Energy Division with the overall aim to investigate the concept of environmental debt and what it means for a business. Furthermore, a sustainable risk and responsibility investigation shall be carried out on the concerned areas. Finally, the priority areas shall be highlighted and proposed actions presented. The Swedish Environmental debt concept was presented in 1992 by Arne Jarnelöv. Environmental debt is defined as restoration costs for environmental damage. In the early days the concept did not take into account who was responsible, but the environmental debts was regarded as a humanity debt to future generations.

Syftet med studien var att pröva vilka psykologiska mekanismer som påverkar sambandet mellan attityder och beteendeintentioner inför miljöpåverkan hos individer i konsumtionssamhället. Hypotesen var att det finns ett miljömedvetande hos människan, men att det är en skillnad mellan attityd och beteendeintention. Även emotioner inför miljöpåverkan hos deltagarna undersöktes, för att fördjupa studien. Undersökningen har gjorts kvantitativt via en webbaserad enkät, genom utskick via Facebook till vuxna individer i Sverige mellan 18-65 år (N=49). Svarsprocenten var 46 procent. Huvudresultatet visar att det finns en oro hos individer inför miljön och framtiden och 94 procent av deltagarna anser att miljöfrågor är viktiga.

The concept of sustainable development is a challenge that demands cooperation from all levels of society for it to be successful. The focus for this thesis is how politicians within the local councils understand the concept of sustainable development and how they implement it in political decision-making.The basis for the study is a questionnaire that was distributed to 303 local politicians in three municipalities of varying size in Southern Sweden. The study concentrates on departments within the local councils that are directly connected to the Swedish environmental law and the Swedish planning and construction law. One of the primary goals with the aforementioned laws is the achievement of sustainable development within one generation.The outcome of the study was that over half of the local politicians could correctly define sustainable development according to the World Commission on Environment and Development?s (WCED) definition.

Det talas om översvämningar - hur processen med att ta fram översiktsplaner, samt dess styrmedel skall förändras så att den fysiska miljön kan möta klimatförändringarna, är ett examensarbete som redogör för hur anpassande och förebyggande klimatarbete lättare skall implementeras i fysisk planering. Fyra kommuner och två länsstyrelser har studerats genom litteratur och kvalitativa intervjuer med fysisk planerare. Två kommuner har kartlagt översvämningsriskerna, varav en har arbetat med att säkra staden..

Dagens samhälle är präglat av materialism och dagens konsumtionsmönster är ohållbara ur miljömässig synpunkt. Konsumtionen skapar därmed miljöproblem och ett viktigt styrmedel för att göra den mer hållbar är miljömärkning. Miljömärkta produkter produceras på ett miljöansvarigt sätt utan kemiska bekämpningsmedel och gödsel som är skadliga för både människa och miljö. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka den nuvarande medvetenheten kring miljömärkningar hos unga vuxna på Möckelngymnasiet. Metoden för studien var enkätutdelning till skolklasser som går sista året på gymnasiet.

As a small and land scarce country, effective waste management is ofoutmost importance in Singapore. In this study the production of biogasthrough anaerobic digestion from the organic fraction of municipal solidwaste (OFMSW) was compared to incineration of the waste. At the momentalmost all of the OFMSW in Singapore is incinerated. Three differentscenarios were compared to the reference scenario (incineration): one with alarge scale biogas plant that can treat half of all OFMSW in Singapore, onewith a medium scale biogas plant about 15 times smaller than the large oneand one with a small scale biogas plant that can treat waste from e.g. ashopping center or a food center.By using life cycle assessment (LCA) the different scenarios were comparedin terms of global warming potential (GWP), acidification, eutrophication,energy use and land use.

Background:When the patient is critically ill the family is in a vulnerable position. The nurse's role is to support and help the family to find meaning in the difficult situation and to provide realistic hope. Balancing between the patient's and the family's needs is difficult. Knowledge about how nurses experience difficulties in the interaction with family is required in order to grant good care too critically ill patients and their family-members.Aim:To describe nurses' perceived difficulties in the interaction with family-members of critically ill patients.Method:The study is a qualitative literature-based study based on qualitative research. Results: The analysis resulted in four main themes; difficult disunion, environmental constraints, interpersonal difficulties and communicative difficulties.