In Sweden, detailed development plans (DDPs) go through a screening process to decide whether their implementation could cause significant environmental impact or not. The criteria in the legislation were studied to see if an environmental impact assessment was needed. This study also investigated 26 DDPs from 12 out of 13 of the municipalities in Östergötland and how they meet up to the demands in relevant legislation, for example the rules for Environmental Impact Assessments. Plans that concerned suburban communities and new housing were selected. The environmental issues highlighted in the plan documents were compared to selected topics from the GIS data base 'Östgötakartan' to see if the assessments made by the municipalities were reasonable judged.

The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on a present trend of professionalization in Swedish local environmental politics, which have recently seen a decline in active participation of the citizens in favor of an increased governmental regulation. With the aim to closer investigate this relatively new phenomenon, the paper is a qualitative single case-study of environmental policies in the Swedish municipality of Karlskrona. In this case, the municipality is obviously balancing between regarding the interests of the national level and the interests of its own citizens at the same time. This motivates the use of system-theory, and relates to the classical political paradox between participation and efficiency which is also a present theme in the paper.This text-analysis based on interviews with personnel and documents from the municipality shows a visible trend of professionalization in the local politics of the municipality of Karlskrona, from a large grade of participation and a strong bottom-up approach in the days of Agenda 21 to now being more strongly top-down defined by national environmental objectives and principally operated on a professional level..

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.

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.

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.

The research of this Masters thesis examines if during a specific period of time, Environmental scanning connected to Swedish public libraries is discussed in journals that are directly connected to the field of Swedish libraries. The method employed was content analysis of articles, news items and ads with the intention of finding out the extent of Environmental scanning and who carries it out and how and what is scanned. The research covers the period from 2004-01-01 to 2004-08-31. During the research period 1387 articles, news items and ads were analyzed. The study focuses on 81 selected published units that directly include references or discussion about Environmental scanning.

To integrate environmental concerns into non-environmental policy making has become an important policy objective within the European Union. This essay investigates policy instruments in use to achieve environmental policy integration in the EU's transport sector respectively fisheries sector. The point of departure is a theoretical discussion about governance and the use of different policy instruments for environmental management at the EU-level. The focal point is the argumentation that regulatory policy instruments alone cannot achieve environmental policy integration satisfactory. By using Jordan et al's classification of so called "new" environmental policy instruments (market-based instruments, voluntary agreements and ecolabels) as complements to regulatory measures, the essay investigates whether the first-mentioned are used within the two sectors.

Certifications is common for IT in relation to individual program languages or program applications. Certifications for educations that endures several years is not as common to see. In this paper the situation for the Systems Science programme is researched, by investigating how the programme looks around in Sweden. Also by using interviews, show how companies and people responsible for the programme in Umeå, think the contact is between them and how the knowledge of the Systems Science students are from the view of the companies that employ them. In the end the conclusions show that there are differences in the Systems Science programme, and that the companies have quite a similar view of what the Systems Science students are good and not so good at.

During the 90s most companies organized and adopted routines for their environmental work. This work included for example eco-efficiency improvements and the introduction of environmental managing systems. At the UN conference in Rio in 1992 the concept Sustainable development was defined, but it was not until about the year of 2000 that companies in Sweden shifted their work from environmental management to sustainable management. A consequence of this is that they now have to focus on environmental aspect in conjunction with social and economic aspects.The purpose of this study is to gain understanding of what a change of focus to sustainable development means for companies. Has the environmental work suffered in the competition with social/economical aspects under the new sustainable focus? How will the new way of working affect the balance between environmental and social aspects? Changes were studied in five companies by analysing their annual-, environmental- and sustainability reports and through interviews of sustainable managers.

BACKGROUND & During the last century, the Swedish chemical industry has developedPROBLEM: considerably in regard to respecting the environment. Following various discharges and pollutions during the first half of the 20th century, environmental concepts such as CSR, Responsible Care and REACH have developed in order to improve the situation. Today, environmental issues play a central role in the society, but what are the reasons behind this increased environmental commitment? PURPOSE & The purpose of this thesis paper is to study the driving forces behindDELIMITATIONS: the increased environmental awareness in companies. Is this mainly due to stricter legislations, or do factors like pressure from the general public, the industry or customers play a more vital role? Furthermore, do economic incentives exist, that make it interesting for companies to invest in environmental awareness? Since the chemical industry spans over a wide spectrum in regard to environmental issues, this paper will focus on a specific area of the industry.

Fuel produced from renewable resources is of big interest. In this project the difference between a few different renewable materials are compared on the matter of environmental load when ethanol is produced. The renewable materials that are compared are Salix, straw and reed canary-grass (rörflen). The cellulose in the material is cut down to small pieces and then hydrolysed so that the sugar from the cellulose can be fermented into ethanol. Tha amount of ethanols that is studied in this work is the smount of ethanol needed to cultivate 1000 ha. The functional unit in the report is 1000 ha.

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.

Chapter 1 defines the aim of the project and gives a general orientation about ground heat extractors. In chapter 2 physical processes that could be expected to be involved in the heat transport around a ground heat exchanger are discussed. It is shown from a literature study what amount of moisture transport due to thermal gradients there could be expected in a ground heat exchanger. The conclusion is drawn that the moisture gradient (Sr) is of same magnitude as the driving temperature gradient (°C). At the expected amount of increased moisture around the pipes the moisture transport could be considered to have a little effect on the brine temperature.

This thesis examines the process of securitization of the environmental issue in the United States. By using the theories of sectoral security and securitization by Barry Buzan and Ole Waever, commonly known as the Copenhagen school we go beyond the traditional security frames and examine where the environmental issue in the United States stand today within the securitization spectrum. The securitizing spectrum includes three levels in which an issue can be place: non-politicised, politicised and securitized.The problem, which we wish to address, is if there is a movement of the environmental issue in the United States towards becoming a securitized issue. In the light of these circumstances we also wish to explore who is behind the movement and also find out where the issue stand today. We do believe that Al Gore is a securitizing actor and examine his role in the movement of the environmental issueWe have come to the conclusion that there is an ongoing process of securitization in which the environmental issue have moved from being politicised to becoming securitized..

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.