The Baltic Sea is threatened by eutrophication that largely is due to nutrient leaching from farmland within the catchment area. To solve this problem the surrounding countries cooperate within various configurations such as HELCOM and the EU-financed project Baltic Compass. Poor manure management in Russia has been discussed frequently the last couple of years. A literature review of different types of reports and legal acts is the core of this degree project which has been performed in connection to two ongoing research projects financed by EU (Baltic Compass) and SIDA. It is supplemented with interviews with Swedish agricultural consultants and travel reports from two occasions when I had the opportunity to discuss with Russians active within the agricultural sector. Different hypotheses were investigated and discussed. The environmental debate in Russia is quiet and there is a widespread approach that economic profit always trumps environmental concern ? a Soviet heritage that influence the Russian agriculture considerably. The Russian legal acts on stable manure management focus mainly on sanitary questions and only secondary on nutrient leaching.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how investments are justified in the Swedish data center industry, with a focus on cooling equipment. This is achieved through semi-structured interviews with 20 different interviewees. These interviewees represent different facets of the industry and facilitate an understanding of which factors, such as: investment costs, operating costs, reliability, environmental impact and the influence of external and internal actors, come into play and to which degree they impact the investment decision-making process. The results show that primarily low operating cost in the form of low energy consumption is the driving factor when it comes to the procurement of new equipment. A lower environmental impact is a positive side-effect of lower energy consumption.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the innovation process of companies, and to analyse how important success factors and obstacles are in their innovation process.Method: The investigation strategy used for this essay was to interview companies that work with innovations. The essay has a qualitative approach. Both primary ? in the form of interviews - and secondary data ? literature found in books, scientific articles and internet - have been used to achieve our results.Results: The result of this essay is: there is not just one inovation process that is applicable to all companies. On the other hand, there are some guidelines that could be followed in the process.

SummaryA complete graphic profile program along with marketing material has been produced for seven photographers.The material has been produced in consideration to sell their pictures outside of Scandinaviaand Brazil as first priority. The criterion for the profile is to give a message of quality and ofScandinavia. Through research and interviews facts about typical scandinavian design have beenfound. Since the pictures will be exported abroad, a selling packaging solution has been developed. Theparts that are included in the marketing material are: a brochure, display solution, a website and printingexamples.

The national spatial planning guidelines and the subsequent legal regulation in the Natural Resources Act and the Environmental Code has been a part of the Swedish planning system for almost 40 years. In the recent years, critics have claimed that the regulations are outdated and does not work the way it was intended. This paper examines closer why it is perceived that the regulations does not work, with a focus on how the national interests are managed in the municipal planning. Why is the national interests not applied in the municipal planning as intended? Is the error in the system or in the implementation of it? The aim of this essay is to study the gap between theory and practice by studying how the land management provisions in the Environmental Code is applied in five selected municipalities.

AbstractTitle: Corporate Social Responsibility within the banking-sector ? A case study of the CSR-strategies of Nordea.Seminar date: 130108State University: Mälardalen University ? Västerås Institution: School of Sustainable Development of Society and TechnologyLevel: Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration ? FÖA300Authors: Samir Ghaddab, Josefine Jonsson, Sam LindforsExaminor: Cecilia Lindh Thillenius Supervisor: Magnus LinderströmPages: 35 Attachments: 1 Key words: CSR, bank, sustainability, communication, awarenessResearch questions:- What is the nature of CSR-related work in Nordea, and how do they practice CSR? - How can Nordea raise awareness about CSR among employees and other stakeholders?Purpose: The purpose with this thesis was to get an increased understanding about how Nordea interprets CSR and how they work with CSR. Finally with relevant theories in mind, this thesis presents suggestions on possible changes and opportunities within Nordea?s CSR-activities and how they can co-operate with NGO?s like CSR Sweden.Methodology: A qualitative study with deductive methods. A case study has been done with semi-structured interviews at a company and a nonprofit organization.Conclusion: The reality in which Nordea operates conforms to the theories presented in the thesis when we look at the driving forces behind working with CSR and the demands on the company that stakeholders have.

This is a qualitative case study of young womens? experiences of blogging about One Direction on the social media/microblogging platform Tumblr. The aim of this study was to find out what fan blogging is and why fans blog. We did this by creating an account on Tumblr where we invited young women between the ages of 16?29, who had active fan blogs dedicated to One Direction, to answer an open-ended questionnaire.

In a business environment where the stakeholder perspective is evolving and sustainable development is receiving increased attention, it is of importance for companies to adjust. The demand and pressure is exerted from several stakeholders who force companies to take action and live up to the expectations because if failing to do so, negative consequences will most likely be the case. The attention of this study is on ABB Power Products (ABB PP) and their environment and working environment risk management. The aim of this thesis is to identify and describe how perceived environmental risks are managed and what the incentives are to work proactively to minimize the risks. The incentives for a proactive risk management strategy are researched through both a strategic and operational perspective.

Decomposition of organic matter is a critical process in the ecosystem, which involves many essential biotic and physical parts. Decomposition is therefore an important process both above and below ground. The rate of decomposition is dependent of many environmental factors for example: pH, moisture and supply of oxygen. The decomposition can therefore be affected by large scaled environmental influences, such as acidification and climatic changes. The root litter in the forest is in different ways affected by acidification, liming and manuering.

Denna uppsats handlar om hur den särskilda tillåtlighetsregeln i 11 kap. 6 § miljöbalken tillämpas vid tillståndsprövning av vattenverksamheter. Av paragrafen följer att en vattenverksamhet endast får bedrivas om den samlade nyttan av verksamheten överväger de kostnader samt skador och olägenheter som verksamheten medför. Syftet med paragrafen är att hindra vattenverksamheter som inte är samhällsekonomiskt motiverade samt utgöra ett extra skydd för miljön utöver miljöbalkens generella miljökrav.Syftet med studien är undersöka hur denna paragraf tillämpas i praktiken ? både i rättspraxis och i ansökningsförfarandet.

According to the Water Framework Directive of the European Union, macrophytes should be used as indicators in the ecological and environmental monitoring of lakes. In the member state Sweden the Environmental Protection Agency has elaborated assessment criteria for determining lake status based on macrophytes. The main focus of this thesis is to evaluate the efficiency of the assessment criteria for macrophytes. In addition the concordance between the ecological status classes of the four quality factors included was analysed.The assessment criteria for macrophytes are based on the total phosphorus preference of the respective species. The focus is thus mainly on the nutrient level of the investigated lakes and the environmental problem monitored is eutrophication.

This study is a degree project in environmental engineering at Mälardalens university. Its purpose has been to perform a risk assessment on whether or not any contaminations are present in the soil at two properties in Köping. The assessment was to be done accordingly to a method that has been set up by The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket). The method for investigation of contaminated sites is called MIFO. MIFO consists of two stages.

The capacity to extract information from vehicles has the potential to be very beneficial. Performing analysis on information about fuel usage, emission values and other driving properties of a vehicle can lead to great economic and environmental benefits.This report contains descriptions of two prominent systems for retrieving information of this nature from a vehicle, On-Board Diagnostics and FMS-Standard, and of an implementation of FMS-Standard.The conclusion drawn after this investigation is that these systems do indeed offer access to the benefits mentioned earlier, although to varying degrees and with differing prioritisation..

1 januari 2010 träder förordning 2009:907 i kraft. Denna förordning medför krav på svenska statliga myndigheter att införa ett miljöledningssystem (MLS). Med anledning av detta avser denna studie att utifrån förutsättningar som ligger till grund för en lyckad integrering av MLS bedöma hur Uppsala universitet på bästa sätt kan möta dessa krav. Efter genomgång av litteratur har fyra faktorer som anses vara betydande för integreringsprocessen valts ut. Dessa är; anpassning av MLS till andra ledningssystem, ansvarsfördelning, kommunikation samt utbildning och kompetens.

Companies become more and more aware of the added values of the packaging. A well chosen and developed packaging can reduce the costs for the companies through reduced costs for transports, reduced quantity of waste and discards and increased goodwill for example. The companies? costs for salaries can also be reduced due to the increased packaging handling efficiency and the reduced costs for sick leave, reduced work capacity and rehabilitation etc. that can arise when handling poorly developed products and packaging.