Several theoretic and environmental psychological models establish a connection between the environment and the reactions of humans and the research support that there is a mutual influence between individual, environmental and behavioral factors. You often assume that a person both can influence and be influenced by the surrounding environment. This is evident, but it is less obvious how a given physical design influence people?s immediate behavior in the city. The aim of this study was to investigate if the physical design of a place influences people in an urban environment and to investigate how the behavior is influenced.

The incineration of waste is steadily increasing in Sweden and so is the production ofashes. The bottom ash has for many years been used as construction material inlandfills. Now many of the nation's landfills are closed and there is a great need to findanother beneficial use for the ash. Bottom ash is a gravel-like material and with itsmaterial properties it can replace natural gravel in parts of roads and surfaceconstructions. Today this use is only approved within landfill areas where leachate iscollected and checked.

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.

The purpose of this report was to identify the current waste management of non-hazardous construction and demolition waste in a few Swedish construction companies, based on the different steps in the waste hierarchy with a focus on waste prevention, reuse and recycle. Additionally, the purpose was to attempt identifying opportunities, obstacles and as well as to propose possible solutions from an environmental perspective. The method used was a qualitative study using interviews conducted through emails and phone with employees occupying positions that could answer this reports questions. The results of this report indicates that waste management of construction and demolition waste has improved, and less waste goes into landfills. The concern is that the overall amount of waste being produced is not decreasing, thus calling for actions preventing the production of waste.

This thesis analyzes the effects of different fertilization strategies on forest management at Holmen Skog in Umeå district. Harvesting volumes, net present values and fertilization intensity are presented for each fertilization scenario. The planning reserve (percentage area older than minimum final felling age) was also analyzed in this study.The thesis covers the analysis of five different fertilization scenarios, varying in fertilization intensity, from no fertilization at all, to fertilization at every harvesting operation (thinning or final felling). A sub-study was also carried out so the reader in detail can see how the different fertilization scenarios affect individual forest stands of different nature. The analysis has been done with the planning tool PlanWise, which is an application of the Heureka analysis and planning system.

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.

I det här projektet analyseras huset Röken, uppe på det Småländska höglandet, en plats med mycket historia. Från 1600-talet då en bräcklig fred gör att huset byggs till då huset moderniseras under mitten av 1900-talet och blir inrett med många möbler från Ab Svenska möbelfabrikerna, som bara låg några kilometer från platsen. Detta leder fram till en undersökning av familjen som äger huset och till Jan Strand, min far, idag den enda permanent boende där. Projektet har mynnat ut i möbeln ?Beach? avsedd att användas då Jan i ensamhet njuter av jazzmusik uppe i sin sons rum..

Bakgrund:Miljöredovisningen är ett sätt för företagen att beskriva sitt miljöarbete. Den har fått allt större betydelse för företagen i takt med att miljöfrågorna blivit allt viktigare hos intressenter och allmänheten. Det gäller för företagen att visa att man tar ett miljö- och samhällsansvar för att skapa trovärdighet och förtroende i samhället.  Syfte:                                 Att ge läsaren en bild över hur och varför miljöredovisningen ser ut som den gör och vad företagen, som associeras med betydande miljöpåverkan, väljer att fokusera på i sina miljöredovisningar. Metod:                              En kvalitativ studie som grundar sig i legitimitetsteorin och institutionell teori har utförts. Vi har undersökt litteratur, vetenskapliga artiklar, miljöredovisningar samt fört intervjuer med personer som har behörig kompetens.  Slutsats:                            Studien visar på hur viktig miljöredovisningen är för företagen som associeras med betydande miljöpåverkan.

Until 2020, 49% of Sweden's use of energy must derive from renewable sources. Greenhouse gases must as well decline with 40% compared to 1990 as a part of Sweden's 16 environmental objectives. Biogas is part of the effort to achieve these objectives, but as the demand for biogas increases, more substrates are needed to meet the demand. The purpose is to investigate the conditions for pea residue as substrate by performing lab-scale mesophilic digestion with different fractions and notch lengths and then to summarize pea residue as a substrate for biogas production. During anaerobic digestion, 1000 ml bottles were used as reactors for digestion.

The aim of my bachelor?s thesis is to investigate, through a literature review, changes in the distribution of filamentous algae as well as the general species composition of macroalgae and diatoms in Swedish eelgrass meadows. I have also studied the possibility of tracking these algae and diatoms in eelgrass meadows using eDNA methodology. The focus has been on linking these changes to climate change factors such as eutrophication, temperature increase, and anthropogenic emissions, and how these affect the health of eelgrass meadows and their ecosystem services, such as a carbon sink and biodiversity support. The results show that filamentous algae have increased markedly in coverage in Swedish coastal areas between 1980 and 2021, especially in sheltered bays, indicating that altered environmental conditions favor these fast-growing species. Genetic tracking using eDNA demonstrated that there are functional primers for many species, particularly among brown algae and red algae, whereas green algae require more specific primers due to greater genetic variation.

Syftet med examensarbetet är att främja den hållbara utvecklingen i anläggningssektorn. Målet med rapporten är att visa hur miljöklassningssystemet CEEQUAL kan förbättras samt hur användningen kan främja hållbar utveckling i mark och anläggningsprojekt i Sverige. CEEQUAL är ett miljöklassningssystem inom infrastruktur och anläggning som har utvecklats i Storbritannien av Institution of Civil Engineers. I examensarbetet har följande frågeställningar undersökts: Hur fungerar CEEQUAL i praktiken? Vad är den svenska erfarenheten från användningen av CEEQUAL? Hur kan anläggningssektorn förbättra miljö/hållbarhetsarbetet genom miljöklassning med CEEQUAL? Hur kan man förbättra miljöklassningssystemet CEEQUAL? Frågorna har besvarats genom metoderna litteraturstudie och dokumentanalys men även genom intervjuer med olika aktörer inom anläggningsbranschen. Denna rapport innehåller en kort sammanfattning av vad hållbar utveckling betyder och en fördjupning inom miljöklasscertifieringssystemet CEEQUAL samt dess användning inom anläggnings- och infrastrukturprojekt. En jämförelse mellan CEEQUAL, de 16 nationella miljömålen och Kretsloppsrådets mål har också utförts för att se om de behandlar samma miljöområden. En certifiering sker i flera olika steg. En certifiering genomförs av en utbildad assessor som bedömer och ger poäng på svaren av frågorna som återfinns i CEEQUAL:s manual.

A third party access to district heating networks has been proposed in Sweden, to increase the competition on the district heating market. Such third party access could create opportunities for the agricultural sector as an energy producer. This study describes the technical, economical and environmental prerequisites for a farmer cluster to build and run a heating plant, fueled with local wood fuel. The heating plant in the described scenario is 8 MW and will supply a village of 1000 houses, and is fueled with wood chips exclusively. Supplying a heating plant with fuel puts high demands on the logistics, since there need to be a continuous flow of fuel. In the scenario, wood residues from felling and thinning is stored in stacks in the forest, and a few times a year chipped and transported to a storage area at the heating plant. In the study, an estimation of the profitability has been made by estimating the cost of the investment, personnel, operating and maintenance costs and costs for the fuel and ash handling.

Rapid urbanisation is putting strains on both the landscape and the city dwellers and the pressure on planning for sustainable and equitable cities is crucial. As many cities in Sub-Saharan Africa are expanding, city planning has trouble keeping up to meet the needs of the growing amount of urban dwellers. Many cities have also been planned with the cars in focus and the needs and comfort of the pedestrians have been overlooked. The capacity of institutions is limited due to centralized government and bureaucracy, as well as corruption. Planning is erratically implemented and it is difficult to know what will happen.

The Aquatic Ape theory was first formulated by Alister Hardy in year 1960. All from the beginning the theory has been criticized, ridiculed, ignored and a source to strong feelings in the anthropological community. The purpose of this essay is to investigate why the Aquatic Ape theory is so controversial and why it is understood so differently by scientists. After interviews with Swedish scientists and the general community, and after reading of anthropological books, I have tried to show that the aquatic ape-coldness depends on it challenging nature against the anthropological paradigm, which describes human beings as strong, hunting creatures who can live in any environment. The Aquatic Ape theory - on the other hand - picks out one of all these environments and says: "here has our evolution occurred: we have been aquatic apes".

Samhället har under de senaste decennierna börjat ställa mer krav på att företag ska implementera hållbarhetsarbete i sin dagliga verksamhet. Det finns dock företag som väljer att bortse från dessa förväntningar då de anser att hållbarhetsarbete har en negativ inverkan på lönsamheten i form av ökade kostnader, till exempel genom omstruktureringar och utbildningar. De företag som inte har valt att arbeta hållbart är de företag som inte har en långsiktig syn på hållbarhetsarbete och inte heller kunskap om de fördelar som det kan leda till, både för företaget i sig, miljön och samhället i stort. En undersökning har visat att flera börsnoterade bolag i Sverige fortfarande har mycket att arbeta med inom hållbarhetsområdet. Däremot ökar medvetenheten kring att företag kan medverka till en mer hållbar utveckling.Den forskningsfråga som då blir aktuell är hur börsnoterade bolag i Sverige förenar lönsamhet och hållbarhet med fokus på miljöansvar.