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.

Background: Obesity is one of the fastest growing medical conditions both for children and adults. Children with overweight/obesity risk to be exposed to social discrimination and stigmatization from peers. Stigmatization is when the society labels an individual that deviates from what is considered normal behaviour. Purpose: The aim of this literature review was to describe potential stigmatization of children with overweight/obesity. Method: The study was carried out as a general literature review study.

The purpose of this study is to examine the Swedish national student organizations attitudes towards school food and the school food debate between 1957-1982. The previous research on the subject maps the historical background and development of the school meal, but lacks a contemporary student perspective from the chosen time period, not least on a deeper and more political level. The theoretical starting points in the study concern organizations and their influence on public authorities as well as student influence. These theoretical frameworks are used to describe the conditions for the currently active national student organizations; Elevf?rbundet and SECO, in the political arena.

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.

This study draws upon the framework for analyzing the discourse of a science classroom introduced by Mortimer and Scott (2003). It has been used for many studies before on high school youths, but never on adults. Therefore, this study focuses on the interaction between teacher and students in an adult education on high school level in physics, and how students can change the classroom discourse. Observations took place in two different schools for adults, in four different teaching groups. The result was analyzed by pattern of interactions, communicative approach, teaching purpose, type of student questions and their effect on the classroom discourse.

Restrictions in nature conservations are increasing the influence of forest management. Nobel broadleaved forests are more influenced than other forests, because they are considered to be more valuable than other forest types in Skåne. There has been a lack of knowledge about the amount that is set-aside for nature conservation and what types of forest that is concerned. These are the main questions to be answered in this thesis. Moreover has the timber quality been compared between set-aside and non-set-aside areas since it affect the financial conditions for the forestry in nobel broadleved forests. The last asked question deals with the financial consequences of set-aside.

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.

AbstractSahlin, Marcus (2011) Kommunens omvärld ? En kontextualisering av omvärldsbevakning och omvärldsanalys i en kommun[Surroundings of a municipality? A context of environmental awareness and environmental analysis in a Swedish municipality]Avancerad nivå, masteruppsats, examensarbete i Samhällsplanering 30 hp.Handledare: Urban NordinSpråk: SvenskaOmvärlden har blivit större i takt med att globaliseringen har gjort vår värld mindre. Kommuner kan ta hjälp av omvärldsbevakning och omvärldsanalys för att lättare skapa underlag för framtida planer och visioner. Syftet med uppsatsen är att, med hjälp av en fallstudie, beskriva hur en kommun i Stockholmsregionen arbetar med omvärldsbevakning och omvärldsanalys. Avsikten är även att förklara vad omvärldsbevakning och omvärldsanalys kan betyda för en kommun, samt undersöka om kommunen upplever att det finns en konkurrenssituation på kommunens ?marknad?.

This thesis investigates the socio- and environmental economic effects of a deep repository for spent nuclear fuel in Forsmark in the municipality of Östhammar. I seek to show the general picture but focus on the effects on employment, environment and income. Cost-benefit analysis is used to investigate the differences in utility between a scenario with and a scenario without a deep repository in Forsmark. Most of the possible effects can not be valued and many can not even be quantified with the data available today. Therefore this thesis has a bit of a ?preliminary study character? and seeks to show what we know today and what needs to be further investigated when available data allow it. The costs that could be valued are noise from the traffic during the period of building and emissions of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides from the transportation of rock masses during the building period.

In order to answer the question in the title, a cross-cultural analysis of two countries was done. Countries chosen were the Republic of Latvia and the Kingdom of Spain. The need for this research was suggested by increased cross-border business activities inside the European Union, and the lack of previous studies involving new Member States. The aim of the research was to see what environmental factors influence advertising adaptation in the European Union, as well as to evaluate the applicability of a standardisation approach. According to the theory, there are three external factors that influence the creation of a global advertising.

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.

SAAB Automobile ABis a car manufacturer within General Motors corporate group. SAABAutomobile ABhas a big part of the responsibility for the brake development in the corporategroup. The car industry is facing harder environmental requirements, which influence the brakedevelopment. The focus is to develop brakes with low drag and sustained brake feeling andperformance. Important characters for the brake caliper are high stiffness and low weight, highstiffness results in high performance and low weight is important because it is unsprung mass.This thesis investigates the possibility to improve the performance of the brake caliper for aGMproject.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent municipalities in Sweden use democratic innovations to include citizens in the decision making process. Along there are three research questions:? What different forms of democracy innovations are Swedish municipalities applying in order to increase the civic participation between elections and what forms are dominant?? What potential influence in decision-making are citizens getting through these democratic innovations based on the results?? Based on the results ? in what ways is the democracy innovations used in municipalities challenging representative democracy? The method used to fulfill the purpose and answer the research questions is a web survey including 287 of 290 (in total) municipal websites. The theoretic framework includes a model which is called ?Smith?s ladder of participation? and is influenced by the research of Graham Smith and Sherry Arnstein.

In this study we have explored and investigated how journalist experience the relationship with politicians/press secretaries in the making of political news. The study examines how journalists see the balance of power between them and their political sources in the setting of the news agenda. To do this we have used a qualitative interview analysis. Our theoretical starting points have been based on the social exchange model. The social exchange model has a social psychological and sociological perspective that explains the interaction, social exchange and stability as a process of negotiation exchanges between parties and operators.