Agencies towards Sustainable Development ? A Study of Environmental Management Systems in Governmental Agencies 2005A vision of the Swedish government is to build an ecologically sustainable society. A tool in this effort is to implement environmental management systems (EMS). The aim of the thesis is to present in which phase of the implementation of EMS Swedish governmental agencies are. This will be done by compilation and evaluation of agencies? yearly environmental reports.The thesis is written in co-operation with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Swedish EPA).

Agency theory describes the conflict of interest between the principal (stockholders) and the agent (CEO). Aligning the incentives of executives with those of the owners is the most direct way to mitigate the agency problem. If there is no meaningful link between CEO compensation and company performance, it is doubtful that the large sums of assets in public corporations are being managed efficiently. In theory the solution is simple reward the CEO when shareholders wealth increases. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if there is a relationship between company performance and CEO compensation among Swedish companies, in materials and information technology industry.

Companies today are expected to communicate their responsibility to the world around them. Society?s expectations differ and stakeholders are demanding that companies act responsibly on matters related to climate, work environment and human rights. The purpose of sustainability reports is that companies should measure, present and take responsibility in relation to their internal and external stakeholders. It is intended that a reasonable picture of the company's sustainability performance should be communicated, containing both positive and negative effects.Companies efforts with sustainability issues is industry-dependent and industries with significant environmental problems perform the most advanced environmental statement.

Teaching preschool children about the environment. A comparative study of how two preschools work with environmental issues.My investigations are based on qualitative interviews and observations carried out at two preschools, one of which has a nature and environment profile while the other works in traditional ways with these questions. I sought to explore the ways in which pedagogues in each preschool raise environmental awareness and, more generally, awaken an interest in nature in the children. The consequences of methodological similarities and differences will be considered.This term paper concludes that the difference between an environmental profile preschool and a traditional preschool working on environmental awareness is not large. The knowledge gained by children in the latter preschool surpassed that gained in the former.

We must all take our responsibility to our common environment, we have to make sure that the following generation is guaranteed a healthy and good environment. Swedens universities have a significant role too achieve this. Environment questions have to integrate in the educa¬tion as a compulsory element, then more people will have an increased comprehension for the influence we have ion the environment. . My degree project have I decided to do about the environmental work at Halmstad University.

This thesis has evaluated environmental classifications of projects and the lessons learned to explore what the possible ramifications of implementing this in the construction and infrastructure are. Companies today are looking to develop methods to demonstrate their environmental commitments, but there is an uncertainty regarding the contribution of environmental classifications in this aspect.The literature review presents the theory of environmental classification, which provides a general knowledge of its function. The empirical data is based on an analysis of existing classification methods and qualitative interviews. The analysis shows specific environmental classification system for the area of construction and infrastructure. CEEQUAL is currently the only environmental classification applicable to Swedish projects and therefore serves as the basis for the continued analysis.

Environmental objective 17: Sustainable consumption - An attempt to integrate the global impact of the Swedish consumption with the environmental objectives system The aim of this report was to integrate the global impact of the Swedish consumption withthe environmental objectives system through presenting a suggestion for a seventeenth environmental objective ? Sustainable consumption. How the Swedish consumption pressures the global environment and methods to measure the affects was investigated. The pressure was divided into five main fields: climate, air, water, land and chemicals. The impacton humans and the biodiversity was also discussed, as well as differences between how men and women affect the environment and get affected when the environment changes.

Today many companies and municipalities requires that their suppliers should have an environmental management system to work by. This might be one of the reasons to the increasing number of companies that today are implementing environmental management systems. Care of Haus is one of the companies that thinks that the benefits are bigger than the disadvantages, when it comes to environmental management systems, therefore they have made the choice to work with ISO 14001.The ISO 14001 standard is deified on the PDCA- cycle. PDCA stands for Plan, do check and act. Care of Haus choose to work with the ISO 14001 standard since it is a well-known standard for the companies that?s Care of Haus collaborates with and it is also well-known within their clienteleWithin this report an environmental investigation has been made.

Purpose - To analyze the relationship between supply chain management maturity, supply chain performance and financial performance in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME:s).Design/methodology/approach - The data comprises 15 SME:s that participated in a local logistic study in Gävleborgs län. The levels of supply chain mature within these firms were based upon an interview study and the financial performance of the firms was then examined using financial reports-based data.Findings -The results of this study indicate that there is a strong relationship between SCM maturity and SC performance in SMEs, some relationships between SCM maturity and financial performance, as well as some relationships between SC performance and financial performance. This means that if firms use maturity indicators in the SCOR areas to improve their processes, they will most likely achieve a positive effect on supply chain performance and probably also on financial performance. The result implies that the supply chain maturities in these firms are higher than expected with no one at the adHoc level.While this study is based on a rather small number of participating firms, it would be valuable to further test the significance of the indicated correlations between SCM maturity and performance in a large-scale survey.Research limitations/Implications - The research is an attempt to understand supply chain maturity and it´s implication on financial performance. Developing supply chain maturity is an opportunity for a company to gain superior performance.

The real estate company Ihus is facing an expansion of its comfort cooling in Noatun,Uppsala, to provide the buildings in the block with cooling. The buildings in Noatunare mainly used for office premises, where the requirements for an accepted indoorclimate is great. However, it?s uncertain whether Ihus should continue, as currently,producing comfort cooling by themselves using a compressor chiller, or if they shouldconnect themselves to Vattenfall?s district cooling net.The purpose of this report is to examine which technique of cooling is best suited forIhus and their buildings in Noatun. It should also work as a guideline for othercompanies facing the same problem as Ihus.

The Energy Performance Certification in Sweden was developed as a tool to achieve the Government's target to reduce Sweden's energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020. The Energy Performance Certificate has previously received some criticism for not fulfilling its purpose. Questions that formed the basis for this report is how the energy performance certification provides support to buyers of single-family houses and if the energy performance improved in terms of reliability. The report begins with a background description that describes how the energy declaration works and some of the findings of previous evaluations and surveys. A survey to investigate the broker's position to energy performance have been conducted as well as interviews with buyers and sellers of houses. An investigation whether the energy performance can vary between different calculation programs, depending on various assumptions made by the energy declarant, has been made.Brokers and sellers have proved negative attitudes towards energy performance, particularly brokers.

Assessing the outcome of corporate responsibility is often argued to be complicated due to long-term effects and qualitative aspects. Epstein (2008, p.261) establishes that: ?Though many think that sustainability is too difficult to measure, companies have found that unless the impacts are measured, they are commonly ignored in the resource allocation process?. Corporate responsibility is often referred to as a business case, i.e., that social and environmental concern add value to the business (Heikkurinen, 2010; Porter & van der Linde, 1995). Hence, for corporate responsibility to be a business case a strategy, corporate structure and systems, programmes and actions linked to performance measures need to be in place to assess the outcome; environmental, social as well as financial.

This paper is a study how students at a high school in Falun, Sweden, estimates theirperformance in an upcoming math test which is then compared with the actual grade thestudent performed. The students who participated also answered questions related to ?risksituations? to examine whether there is a correlation between how students estimate theirperformance in the context and their risk behavior, and if the students act like economicmodels assume. In agreement with previous studies, the boys in the survey tended to beoverconfident in their performance. The girls in the study were neither over- norunderconfident in her performance and no significant difference in the estimation of one'sperformance between the sexes could be proven.

The subject field studied in this essay is environmental scanning. The aim of this study is to analyse how three public organizations within the subject field sustainable development work with their environmental scanning. Most organizations have to relate to their surroundings such as clients and competitors. Environmental scanning is another very important field that organizations have to relate to in their work. This essay has three questions in focus which are the following;How is the work with environmental scanning in the three organizations arranged?How does the work with environmental scanning differ in the three organizations?How important is environmental scanning for the subject field sustainable development?The study was carried out through four conducted interviews with key persons within the three organizations.

AbstractWith this c-composition, I am trying to give a view over what has happened in the political area and the issues that concerns environmental aid. My analyze starts in the 60-ies when the environmental debate took of. It continues trough the 70-ies, 80-ies and ends in 1994 with the report that considers the UN-conference in Rio de Janeiro 1992, ?Sustainable Aid? and what the results of the more and more important issue ?sustainable development? has offered the Swedish government ant there work with environmental aid.The question issue is: At what time in history, did the Swedisch government start to addrsess environmental aid? How did the environmental aid come to be addressed and developed in the political area from the Brundtlandreport ?Our common future? from 1987 to the UN-conference in Rio de Janeiro 1992?The result is that the environment is getting more and more important in the political arena as the knowledge about the escalating crises with the environmental problems are being taken more seriously. The problems with the environment has to be considered together with the rest of the aid- and developing questions like economy and the struggle to reduce poverty in the world.