AbstractIn the fall of 2003 a project was started in the Swedish building sector that is called BASTA (the building sectors’ termination of especially harmful substances). The project is operated by the building companies NCC, Skanska, PEAB and JM, the Swedish Building Industry and the Swedish Environmental Institute IVL. The purpose of the project is to create a common environmental assessment system for the entire building industry and with the help of this system phase out the use of especially harmful properties from building products.In a large sense BASTA works like this; On the BASTA web site there is a database, to which a supplier can register the company and the company’s products. Only those products with a substance content that fulfil the demands of the BASTA system, is to be registered. As it is the supplier himself that carries out the registration of the company and the company’s products to the system, the BASTA-organisation annually controls that the companies that are registered in the database, fulfils BASTA’s demands.Since NCC is one of the companies that operates BASTA, BASTA is probably going to be the environmental assessment system that is recommended for the company in the future.

In Sweden, there are limits to how much leachable substances waste must contain in order to be deposited as hazardous waste. Fly ash from waste incineration often end up over the limit, mainly due to the chloride content. Fly ash is therefore often deposited abroad. The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility to handle fly ash locally. To clarify how the law is applied, environmental reports and permit documents from ten waste sites with permission to deposit fly ash were studied.

Uppsatsen har syftat till att belysa Sveriges närområde ur ett säkerhetspolitiskt perspektiv och samtidigt finna faktorer som påverkat Sveriges säkerhetspolitiska rollval. Vidare ämnade uppsatsen att förklara, det vill säga hitta orsaksförklaringar till varför den säkerhetspolitiska miljön i Sveriges närområde ser ut som den gör. Då uppsatsen är att se som teorikonsumerande har svaren sökts genom vald teori som utgår från en regional säkerhetspolitisk analys. Vidare har även ansatser gjort ur Nils Andréns säkerhetspolitiska struktur. De teoretiska ansatserna har sedan använts som analysmodell där fyra nivåer har applicerats på empirin.

AbstractIn the fall of 2003 a project was started in the Swedish building sector that is called BASTA (the building sectors’ termination of especially harmful substances). The project is operated by the building companies NCC, Skanska, PEAB and JM, the Swedish Building Industry and the Swedish Environmental Institute IVL. The purpose of the project is to create a common environmental assessment system for the entire building industry and with the help of this system phase out the use of especially harmful properties from building products.In a large sense BASTA works like this; On the BASTA web site there is a database, to which a supplier can register the company and the company’s products. Only those products with a substance content that fulfil the demands of the BASTA system, is to be registered. As it is the supplier himself that carries out the registration of the company and the company’s products to the system, the BASTA-organisation annually controls that the companies that are registered in the database, fulfils BASTA’s demands.Since NCC is one of the companies that operates BASTA, BASTA is probably going to be the environmental assessment system that is recommended for the company in the future.

Detta arbete har identifierat fyra betydande faktorer vars verkan resulterat i att de intervjuade småföretagen valt att inte organisera miljöarbetet enligt ISO 14001 standarden: fragmenterad kunskap om miljöproblem.

Vole populations in northern Scandinavia vary in cycles with peaks every third or fourth year as described by the National Environmental Monitoring Programme of small mammals (NEMP). Some vole species have declined in population numbers since the NEMP started in 1971, especially the grey-sided vole (Myodes rufocanus) which is nearly extinct in the forested region. Since small mammals are an important food source for several avian and mammalian predators, the decline in vole numbers is expected to have consequences for the whole food chain, especially if other vole species start to decline in numbers. This study tried to test the hypothesis that presence and abundance of M. rufocanus (a specialist species) and Myodes glareolus (a generalist species) can be predicted by patch size and connectivity of forest patches >60 years old with a minimum of 15% pine >100years old.

The project is a practical and theoretical test of IP telephony with Skype in order to form a base for a comparison between IP-Telephony with Skype and the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN). PSTN is the common standard that most of us use for telephony today. The objective for the study is to simplify the choice between PSTN and IP-Telephony for the Swedish private customer user group. The project is supposed to answer the following questions. - How easy is it to start using IP-telephony with Skype? - How is the quality of IP-telephony compared to PSTN? - Are all services provided by PSTN available and accessible using the IP-solution? - How are the usability and the availability of support with IP telephony? - Is IP-telephony a cheaper solution and in that case under which circumstances? Within the project a collection of practical and theoretical tests have been performed to be able to form an opinion on the IP-solution in the following areas, installation, function, quality, usability, costs, accessibility and security. In order to study usability, a test group of ten persons have been used to evaluate the usability of the system.

The main environmental problem for aviation is the great amount of exhaust gases, mainly nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons - mostly "greenhouse gases" leading to climate changes. I decided to sort out what is being done to decrease these problems and what regulations there are concerning air pollution by the means of searching the internet and using publications from aviation authorities for current figures. I chose to scrutinize authorities on political, authority and company level, resulting in summarizing the work of UN and EU respectively, ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization), JAA (Joint Aviation Authorities) and LFV (Swedish Civil Aviation Authority), and finally SAS, representing the airline companies. Conclusion that I have drawn are thatthere are regulations for air pollution, written down in ICAO's Annex 16, that are to be followed. Secondly, LFV are environmentally controlling their nineteen airports and since economy is an important reason for not giving priority to environmental issues in aviation emission charge and noise charge are added to the landing fees.

AbstractIn the fall of 2003 a project was started in the Swedish building sector that is called BASTA (the building sectors’ termination of especially harmful substances). The project is operated by the building companies NCC, Skanska, PEAB and JM, the Swedish Building Industry and the Swedish Environmental Institute IVL. The purpose of the project is to create a common environmental assessment system for the entire building industry and with the help of this system phase out the use of especially harmful properties from building products.In a large sense BASTA works like this; On the BASTA web site there is a database, to which a supplier can register the company and the company’s products. Only those products with a substance content that fulfil the demands of the BASTA system, is to be registered. As it is the supplier himself that carries out the registration of the company and the company’s products to the system, the BASTA-organisation annually controls that the companies that are registered in the database, fulfils BASTA’s demands.Since NCC is one of the companies that operates BASTA, BASTA is probably going to be the environmental assessment system that is recommended for the company in the future.

AbstractThis master thesis is a hermeneutic inspired case study of how the value base regarding the environmental and social responsibility in the Swedish coffee company Löfbergs Lila AB is affecting the company's business. A thesis inspired by hermeneutics means that it is based on two ideas, the one of interaction between entirety and partitions and the one of interpretation (Alvesson & Sköldberg 1994). This cause that the emphasis is on how the reality is interpreted and that it never can be seen as completely objective.The case study was conducted during the spring semester of 2010 at Karlstad's University and consists of both empirical and theoretical material collected during this time. The empirical material in this thesis includes, among other things, interviews with four representatives of Löfbergs Lila AB, written material from the company regarding its work related to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), some information about the coffee industry as a whole and different certifications for "ethical? coffee that exists on the Swedish market.The basic idea with CSR as a business strategy is that it can be financially beneficial for companies to take a social and environmental responsibility outside of the company (Vogel 2005).

Environmental issues and ecology is something that is discussed by the Climate board of the UN and by our Swedish politicians. The first part of the thesis deals with the effects of emissions of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. There is a discussion about what counts as greenhouse gas. Interviews have been made with two growers of annual plants and one interview with a person who has worked hard to increase the use of perennials in his work place, Mjösund?s cemetery.

ASSA develops locks and integrated security systems for doors. ASSA is Sweden?s leadingsupplier of locks and security systems. ASSA AB worked during the master thesis withimplementing a common development process for all companies within the group. Ideageneration was one relative unexplored area for the group and the interest of finding effectivemethods was required, the company understood what an effective handling of ideas couldcontribute in the pursuit of more and pleased customers.The purpose of the master thesis has been to study and to map which methods are used inorder to carry out idea generation.

Hållbar utveckling handlar om att ha en balans mellan ekonomisk, ekologisk och social hållbarhet. Kommuner ses som nyckelaktörer i arbetet för en mer hållbar utveckling och har på senaste tiden fått en allt större roll. Karlstad kommun har tre hållbarhetsstrategier, däribland miljö- och klimatstrategin som skall se till att kommunen skall kunna växa på ett socialt, ekonomiskt och miljömässigt hållbart sätt. I miljö- och klimatstrategin finns interna miljömål som är till för kommunens medarbetare. Studien söker att ta reda på medarbetarnas kunskap och förståelse för de interna miljömålen och hur de skall kunna bidra till att uppfylla dessa.

The town square is an important public space and is often described as the city´s living room. By creating a lively city center a sense of security is developed among the citizens which makes them wanting to use the town square regardless the time of the day. One important meeting point in Gävle is the centrally located Stortorget, sited between Drottninggatan and Nygatan. The town square went through an extensive renovation followed by both positive and negative reactions among the City´s inhabitants.  The aim with the study was to investigate the main walking paths and meeting points as a planning support to Gävle Municipality in their work with a new city plan. By studying the pedestrian movement patterns at Stortorget, Nygatan and Drottninggatan, the main walking paths and meeting points during all hours of the day was obtained.

In recent years there have been many corporate scandals from environmental and social aspects. Corporate irresponsible behavior has led to major public discussions on responsibility and these pressures made that many companies wanting to show that they are working for a sustainable development by voluntarily reporting economic, environmental and social and social issues in the financial statement. They hope this will create credibility for the companies. In the current situation, there are a number of guidelines that companies can use to report sustainability. One of these is the GRI guidelines which is an international framework that covers many accounting areas and allows companies to compare their sustainability reports with other companies.The purpose of this study is to determine if all state-owned companies follows the government?s requirement that these companies must form a sustainability report under the GRI guidelines, and the sustainability report must be audited and certified by an outside party.