The environmental debate is more intensive than ever before and the demands on companies increase. There are a number of methods to make it easier for the companies to fulfil the demands. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) end ecodesign are some of the methods that can be used. Syntronic AB has the possibility to reduce the products´ environmental impact in the design phase. Therefore it is important for the company to make it possible to visualize the negative environmental impacts a product can cause in an easy way. It is also important to visualize for there clients if any improvement is possible. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a simplified model.

During the past decade environmental challenges have been intensified and given increased attention. This implies that businesses in all sectors strategically need to manage these challenges. The service sector is often considered as a sector with a low environmental impact if the direct environmental aspects are assessed. Still, it has been argued that the environmental impact that the sector gives rise to can create severe indirect environmental impacts. The products and services that are produced by this sector have a relatively limited use of physical resources which may make the environmental impact challenging to visualize. Banks belong to the service sector and it is partly banks that make the development of societies possible.

Through extensive research it has shown that today?s sail boat owners are very frustrated concerning the limited choice of engine alternatives offered by today?s market. Besides rising fuel-costs, environmental awareness is very important in today?s society. Hence it is vital to find alternative environmental-friendly motors and replace combustion-engines. Zilent Ocean is an extensive project within Development engineering program at Halmstad University.

This thesis deals with the theories of ecological and environmental justice and applies them onto Swedish politics. Confronting the divide in the literature between anthropocentric and ecocentric perspectives, its aim is to seek points of agreement within this important field of environmental politics. In the theoretical discussion, definitions are made of the concepts sustainability, justice and responsibility. These definitions try to link ecological and environmental justice arguments with a focus on the global level.The object of analysis is the former Swedish governments? bill ?Common responsibility: Swedish politics for global development? which was accepted in 2003.

In this study environmental work in the Swedish hotel chain "Scandic" is investigated. Earlier studies point out sustainability and different environmental certificate programs as essential for the housing sector to contribute to sustainable tourism. The purpose and willingness to fulfill such a mission has been investigated by interviewing central actors in the hotel chain. The result shows that there is a desire to be part of environmental certificate programs mainly for the reason to be part of the system and not for the benefit of nature. Sustainable development is understood as being environmentally friendly. Different solutions to adapt and being more environmentally friendly is discussed.

The aim of this paper is to look into the occurrence of home schooling by choice in Sweden. It examines the subject of home education in order to provide an informative overview. It also looks into the legal aspects of the matter to see whether freedom of choice is an issue here when it comes to choosing a certain type of teaching for children of compulsory school age. A further purpose is to provide a comparison of home education in Sweden and in other countries such as the United States, England and Norway.In order to do this we have carried out a secondary analysis of previous research and have also interviewed teachers as well as people with experience of home educating their own children. To accomplish this, we had to look to England for literature and home educating families as home education is a much more common practise in England.The result of this paper strongly indicates that home schooling is not only a legally viable option to traditional schooling, both in Sweden and the other countries concerned, but that it is also a trend that is expected to increase.

This study aims at examining the prospects for a policy transfer of a Swedish municipal environmental policy (that of Växjö) to the French urban commune Blois, for which an ambition of becoming a leading eco-city in France, was declared by the mayor in 2008.In the analysis, emphasis is laid on mechanisms to institutionalize the main environmental policy principles, such as political and institutional structures and processes. Other prospects for an institutionalization of a new environmental policy that are to be investigated are economic structures as well as visions of the different decision-makers concerned. Research methods used in the study are qualitative interviews, document studies and a questionnaire.The findings of the analysis show that today?s prospects for an environmental policy in Blois close to that of Växjö, are clearly limited. The limitations can partly be found in economic structures but these seem to be rather related to a lack of priority amongst actors.

The environmental work of companies has become an incredibly important factor in achieving reduced levels of environmental pollution. For companies the work on environmental issues began in the 1980s. During this time companies also began to show interest for the personnel, an interest that was shown in the form of attempts to disclose personnel information in economics. Earlier this information was separated from the financial information, despite the fact that the revenues are created by the employees.The purpose of this paper is to examine how well companies with a notification or a permit today account for environmental- and personnel information in their director?s report.

This is a diploma thesis executed as a part of the examination of the educationalprogram Building engineer ? Construction management at Halmstad University. The aim of the thesis is to compare and evaluate conventional open-cut pipe-laying withhorizontal directional drilling. The thesis includes a comparison of the economic,environmental and time-based aspects of both methods and discusses which factorsthat determine the optimal choice of method.The study is mainly based on previous studies regarding the subject and oninterviews with professionals from the industry.A fictional project with five realistic cases of pipe-laying scenarios was compiled,sent to different companies for calculation, evaluated and compared. Our conclusionregarding when it?s suitable to use which method is entirely dependent on thespecific project.

The purpose of this study is to examine if the experience of whale watching can lead to increased knowledge of environmental problems. We also want to find out whether increased knowledge in turn could lead to changing environmental attitudes and behaviors. The theoretical framework consists of theories about sustainable tourism, ecotourism and responsible environmental behavior. The paper also has a section where previous research on ecotourism impacts on behavior and attitudes is discussed and subsequently addressed in the analysis section.Data has been collected through a case study where seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals who participated in whale watching. The results show that all respondents had greater knowledge of whales by their experiences, the degree of knowledge was due to respondents' prior knowledge.

The purpose of the house which is the basis of this report is to be able present itself on the market as a relatively cheap and at the same time a climate friendly choice. The house is supposed to be able to be built anywhere in Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia in a short period of time. This puts demand on what kind of heating system the house can have, since not all places have the geographic advantage of being able to use geothermal or district heating. Therefore the heating system choices will only include those that are not limited by their geographic location. The house will be built in modules which only require the groundwork to be done before the house can be erected. In this report "System solutions for plus or passive-housing" a comprehensive literature search has been conducted as well as a number of calculations.

In the last few years the environment becomes more watchful, even for us farmers. All agricultural enterprises that exceed 200 animal units must be tested according to regulation of environment. A farm business with 200 animal units and more is classed ?environmentally hazardous activities? and has to make an environmental impact assessment for the business you have today, and the activity after expansion. Before you can construct a building and expand the numbers of animals is a lot of applications to make. I have in this project restricted me to establish a environmental impact assessment and a consultation foundation. To make a environmental impact assessment is the big part of the application. The environmental impact assessment take a lot of time and you need skills for all the rules in the environmental code to be abele to make an environmental impact assessment approved. The environment codes purposes (1 kap 1 § Miljöbalken) is to rule the laws. The purpose of the environment code is to promote sustainable development which will assure a healthy and sound environment for present and future generations. Definitions of a ?environmentally hazardous activities? 9 kap 1§ Miljöbalken) shall mean the discharges of wastewater, solid matter or gas from land, buildings or structures onto land or into water areas or ground water.

The environment became an established issue on the international political agenda after World War 2. How to preserve natural resources became an issue that concerned several powerful participants, affected by changed conditions in the environmental legislation. This paper is a study of the growing environmental work within the multinational Swedish corporations Boliden, IKEA and SAS and how it was affected by the globalization. The material studied is environmentally related information produced by the companies and also interviews with the Environmental Managers. The information provided has been analyzed and compared with well-known opinions of globalization, trying to find out how the process of globalization has affected the handling of environmental work within the companies.

Concerns for the environment and our impact on it are becoming more prevalant; however, we rarely act accordingly. Consumers mainly choose products based on perceived personal benefits despite the environmental motives that increasingly affect them. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the major drivers behind the purchase of ecological wine. A quantitative study was conducted, using Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as an initial starting point. The subsequent model was then completed with three variables: environmental concern, feelings and word-of-mouth.

The purpose of this study is to understand the factors that are affecting students at the Technology and Electricity- and energy programs in their choice of studies and vocation. The study is a comparative case study and quantitative method has been used in the form of questionnaires. The result shows that students do not like to be affected by another person but believes that they themselves have made their choice. Interest turns out to be the biggest influence factor of choice for both students at the Technology and Electricity- and energy program. For Electricity- and energy students have also access to work had some impact.The parents' education level was higher for Technician students and their parents worked with occupations requiring university degrees.