Mindre företag upplever ofta en del hinder vid införande av miljölednings-system såsom ISO14001 och EMAS. Standarderna uppfattas som byråkratiska och införandet tar för mycket resurser i anspråk, i form av både tid och pengar. I Storbritannien har en ny standard för miljöledning tagits fram för att bättre passa framförallt mindre företag. Standarden, BS 8555,erbjuder ett stegvist införande av ett miljöledningssystem, med möjlighet att få intyg på vägen mot ISO 14001 eller EMAS. Företagen kan också välja att stanna på en lägre nivå än ISO14001 för en längre period..

Most of the clothes sold in Europe today are produced in developing countries where the production costs are lower. The exploitation of the developing countries has led to that the inferior working conditions in these countries have attracted attention from media and NGOs. Globalisation makes company activities more transparent and the absence of transnational laws calls for alternative regulations. Many companies in Europe has since mid 1990s developed codes of conduct to satisfy the demands of external and internal stakeholders. EU also brought Corporate Social Responsibility to it?s agenda in the beginning of the 2000s and subsequently signals of approaching laws were given.

To achieve an optimal combustion, an even air/fuel ratio in the combustion chamber is required. An optimal combustion leads to reduced amount of emissions due to a more complete combustion, which is an important matter because of the sharpened Environmental laws. This can be attained, among other things, by applying entirely variable cam times. To optimize the engines efficiency and its emissions at all workloads and speeds, an active valve control can be applied. This means that the intake and exhaust-valves can be opened and closed at any time, independent of the crankshaft position.

This essay investigates the statements of Växjö municipality?s motives for some of its many environmental projects. The aim of the essay is to be theory-testing as to see how a municipality/city which promotes itself as being ?green? motivates its efforts in the environmental area. Växjö city promotes itself as ?The greenest city in Europe?, an award appointed to the city by BBC and other international media.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how the majorities view on the minority can affect the minorities view on themselves.The study focuses on the research questions; what does the Roma identity look like? Is there a connecting between the week feeling of belonging to the majority ? Slovaks - that the Roma people feel and the widespread racism, stereotypes and scapegoat view towards Roma that the majority in the Slovak society have? Is the view Roma have on themselves effected by how other see them? Has the situation for the Roma gotten better since Slovakia entered the European Union?An empirical research study has been conducted in Slovakia during the period of April 2006 and interviews with Roma and NGO representatives where done.The Roma people's situation in Slovakia is bad and the discrimination towards them is widespread, both in the working life, healthcare, education system and housing. A lot has happened the last years, before Slovakia entered the EU the country adapted many new laws that strengthen the Roma people place in the society and gave them as a minority more support and rights.According to my findings it is found, and what most of the interview Roma expressed themselves, was that today they have a very low feeling of belonging and being a part of the Slovak society. They also expressed that they are very much affected by the poor view that the majority of Slovak have of them and in many cases they did not even want to try to be part of the society. The NGOs expressed that the situation for Roma in Slovakia is bad and even if it has been improved since the country entered the EU, the NGOs said that there are only a lot of new laws and in reality not much has changed..

This report was written by Lisa Bengtson and Hanna Paradis and describes the degree thesis "Environmental impacts of solid waste treatment in the Metropolitan Region, Santiago, Chile ? a comparison between current system and incineration with energy recovery". The purpose of this thesis was to investigate if incineration with energy recovery could be motivated through an environmental perspective as an alternative to landfilling of solid waste in Santiago, Chile. The study was performed with Life Cycle Analysis as a theoretical base. In Santiago, situated in the thirteenth region of Chile, Región Metropolitana, lives 6,5 million inhabitants. The major part of the solid waste produced in the region is landfilled on three different sanitary controlled landfills situated outside the city center.

För att ett företag ska kunna hålla sig flytande på marknaden idag krävs de att de har hundra procent koll på vad som sker i deras fabriker och att de strävar efter en mer hållbar tillverkningsprocess. Att försäkra konsumenterna om att fabrikerna inte använder sig av barnarbete eller dåliga arbetsförhållanden räcker inte längre utan det krävs en bredare kunskap inom miljö och hållbar utveckling för att den trogna kunden ska stanna. Syftet med denna rapport är att kontrollera det nyuppstartade företaget DENIM IS DEAD?s produktion och utvärdera om hur man kan förädla de olika processtegen samt skapa transparens gentemot kund.Metoden som arbetet utformades efter var genom en fallstudie som är baserad på en mestadels deduktiv metod men med inslag av induktiv metod. Där grunden lades genom en utförlig faktainsamling för att i rapportens senare del kunna analysera de hypoteser och problemformuleringar som ställts.Målet med rapporten var att ta fram en metod eller produkt som ska underlätta kommunikationen med DENIM IS DEAD?s kund.

This bachelor thesis aims at investigate how a specified house can optimize its energy consumption.Today the house often stands for the major part of the energy consumption in a consumers? life,whereas an energy optimization creates economic as well as environmental advantages. It is importantto make old houses more energy efficient, but putting high energy demands on new houses could beargued to be more important. The installations functions as both the heart and brain in a house, thusmaking it important to energy optimize these. Since the background describes the importance ofenergy efficiency and optimization in a house, the focus area of this report will be an investigation ofdifferent types of heating systems in order to be able to choose the one most suited for the house.Aspects considered when choosing the heating system was how economic the system is both inservice- and investment costs and how environmental and operational friendly the system is.Through literature reviews there were sufficient information gathered that served as a foundation whencomparing and choosing between the four systems - district heating, pellet-fired boiler, geothermalheating and solar heating.

Under Swedish tax law; the general clause in the Tax Avoidance Act is a method to prevent tax evasion. The purpose of the general clause is to prevent any tax avoidance procedures that the legislator has not been able to foresee. For the general clause to be applicable, four prerequisites need to be met. This thesis analyses the fourth prerequisite based on the principle of legality. The prerequisite concludes that a determination of the tax base, based on the procedure in question, is in conflict with the purpose of the legislation.

ur society is today in a phase of development in environmental and sustainable thinking. Alarming reports show changes in climate caused by our load and exhaust of resources. The energy usage contributes to a big part of it, by its emission of carbon dioxide. The built environment uses around 40 % of the total energy consumption in Sweden and requests to strongly reduce it are presented from both EU and national level.This thesis brings up the subject of green building with a focus on how we can create more energy efficient buildings in projects of new construction. Since the construction industry today often fails to pass on the knowledge between different projects, as a return of experiences, the construction company Skanska suggested the topic for this thesis.

AbstractThe real estate sector is today responsible for 40 per cent of the total amount of energy consumption within the members of the EU. All over the world there are collaborations within research and projects to find ways of reducing the amount of energy consumed by the real estate sector. In Sweden, a directive from the European Union has posed demands on authorities as well as on the private sector to reduce the amount of energy consumed by new building constructions. Together with the directive from the EU there are also new requirements and demands from Boverket for the real estate sector.  These requirements mostly concern the energy consumption of kilowatt-hour per square metre and that the consumed energy also should be renewable.  The aim of this study is to explain what kind of value municipalities experience in using certifications and environmental investments for new and existing buildings. Within the chapter theory, essential areas are described such as; environmental certification systems, economical viability, proceeds connected to building green, difficulties with building green, the performance of green buildings when affected by the behaviour of tenants and customer value.  The following chapter describes the methodology with which we have conducted this study.

This bachelor thesis is based on interviews with staff from three Egyptian NGOs in Cairo during the spring of 2013. The study examines how three Egyptian NGOs discuss the woman?s situation within the Islamic legal discourse in the contemporary Egypt. The empiric material was analysed through a theoretical framework of gender in Islam, and a discussion of the concept of human rights laws in a local context.The respondents emphasize the societies gender stereotypes as obstacles in the discussion regarding women?s rights.

The use of alcohol, narcotics, and tobacco have all long been considered health hazards, especially among children and teenagers. It is therefor not surprising to find that schools have promoted against the use of these substances in different preventative programs for many decades, and the Swedish school system is no exception. However, the use of, as well as the laws restricting alcohol, narcotics, and tobacco are, and have historically been, highly political issues. Individuals, groups, institutions, and states may all have different opinions on how these substances should be regulated and of their place in society, which in turn may lead to conflicts of values and different approaches. One can not expect parents or guardians to share the views on alcohol, narcotics, and tobacco policy presented by schools, laws or state regulations.

The environmental demands are increasing when it comes to product development. EcoDesign isabout minimizing the environmental impact of a product, considering the entire life cycle of it,without compromising other qualities like function or cost. In this master of science thesis amobile phone has been analysed with Ten Golden Rules in EcoDesign regarding production, useand End of Life. Also a functional and an environmental profile were made. The goal was tomake a new concept phone, based on the previous analysis, which communicates userfriendlinessand sustainable development.

Municipalities in Sweden are responsible for physical planning by developing a general plan. This plan contains intended land and water use for the area. This study aims to investigate the level of integra­tion of environmental issues in the general plan of Arboga municipality and also how well adapted the municipality is for climate change. Further on, the study intends to examine the focus of the gen­eral plan and at what rate the national environmental strategies are implemented in the local physi­cal planning of Arboga municipality. Methods used for this study are interviews and reviewing of the general plan itself and other key documents.