SummaryEurope?s public authorities are influential consumers. If they spend their money on greener products and services they can make an important contribution to the work towards a sustainable development. Green public procurement can thereby significantly improve the take-up of new environmental technologies. Through the effects of economies of scale, production costs be lowered and better equip us to fight environmental problems.

The concepts of environmental scanning and Business Intelligence have gained increased interest over the last years in a number of different organisational contexts. The research in this field has mainly been dealing with methods and issues regarding organisation but the aim of environmental scanning, the forming of new perspectives, has been largely ignored. The purpose of this thesis is to study how Swedish joint-stock banks put environmental scanning and Business Intelligence into practice. First a literature study is made to create a background and to explain the different conceptions. Then I describe the different functions of the different services in Swedish joint-stock banks.

The increased interest in a sustainable environment puts pressure on companies in the manufacturing industry. Rexcell Tissue & Airlaid AB (Rexcell) in Skåpafors produces paper to be converted into tabletop and hygiene products. Rexcell is certified according to the environmental management system ISO 14001, gaining competitive advantages by showing that the company works toward a sustainable environment and that they follow current legislation. The activities at the company are classified as hazardous to the environment according to the Environmental code. Every year, the activities are inspected by an independent inspector.

Abstract: The world in which companies are acting today offers challenges in the sense that it is rapidly changing and that a vast amount of information is available. In order to ensure the competitiveness and survival of the company, an effective and efficient environmental scanning is essential to the company. Our aim with this Master's thesis is to investigate what factors constitutes important and basic conditions in a well functioning environmental scanning and how companies strategically can go about to achieve this. In order to highlight and specify how these factors can be applied on a specific company Thule has been our focal point. Thule.

The demand for environmental assessments on buildings and energy consumption is increasing as well as the energy performance requirements for buildings. At the same time it is increasingly common with self-producers of heat and electricity generation.The main purpose with this master thesis is to investigate how time resolution affects the environmental assessment of energy consumption in office buildings connected to district heating (DH). Environmental assessments were done with both attributional LCA and consequential LCA with system expansion.Fortum´s DH system in Stockholm was analyzed and district heating production was simulated in a Matlab-model. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for the production were calculated. The heat demand of the office Gångaren 16 in Stockholm was simulated in IDA ICE.

Environmental chemicals are transported to the Arctic through the air and oceans, once within the Arctic they spread through rivers, lakes and other watercourses. Polar bears and sledge dogs in-gest high concentrations of environmental chemicals since many of the chemicals are fat-soluble and their diet mainly consists of marine mammals. The aim of this study is to describe how environmental chemicals spread in nature, how they reach the polar bears, and finally how they affect the animals reproduction, with reproductive hormones and genitals in focus. The animals are exposed to a cocktail effect which complicates the assessment of the chemicals impact on the reproduction. Studies show that the genitals can decrease in size or become malformed, sexual maturation can be affected and the reproductive hormones can be disturbed.

AbstractThe aim of the present study was to investigate if and how pre-school teachers reach the objectives in the national curriculum concerning the environmental issues.Another angle of this study is to find out if there are any involvement amongst the preschools regarding the environmental issues and if the teachers encourage the children to join in and make them a part of discussion.I have randomly chosen 10 preschools throughout Sweden and interviewed one staff-member from each school. Most of the preschools were well aware of the goals to follow according to the national curriculum.After comparing the answers my conclusion is that preschools act quite differently concerning environmental issues. Some worked almost exclusively with the children involved. Others occasionally involved the children whereas a few didn?t include the children at all.In every case the teachers would want to dedicate more time to environmental issues.

Abstract Title: Ethanol for Scania?s future ? A scenario based analysis Authors: Anna Hansson and Julia Persson Tutors: Annette Cerne ? Department of Business Administration, Lund University Jonas Holmborn ? Head of Advanced Combustion, Engine Development, Scania Lennart Thörnqvist ? Department of Energy Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, Lund University Problem: Oil-based products are the dominating fuels in the transport sector but alternative fuels are currently challenging the world-wide dominance. The large number of alternative fuels that are under development at present makes the future fuel-market impossible to predict. Scania?s ethanol project is associated with a number of uncertainty factors that are beyond the company?s control.

It has become more and more common that companies in the service sector are beginning to understand their own effect on the environment and thus the need to contribute to a sustainable development through acting in a deliberate way. Serious environmental work can help a company to improve their image and in that way win competitive advantage that leads to improved profitability. In a short time perspective, adjustment to the environment is an opportunity to gain competitive advantage and an opportunity to develop a profile. In a long time perspective it is about survival. The environmental work has become a sequel to the work with quality.

Sweden?s environmental work is to set out from 16 national environmental quality objectives. It aims to work for a sustainable society and to solve our current environmental problems today and not pass them on to future generations. The purpose of this study was to evaluate Uppföljning av handlingsprogram för miljömål (a follow up-study of a programme for environmental quality objectives) and to propose new methods to work with the revision of Handlingsprogram ? så genomför vi de regionala miljömålen i Hallands län (a programme to implement the regional environmental quality objectives in the County of Halland), a revision which will start in autumn 2010.

Since the Bruntlandreport was published 1987, companies have shown their environmental commitment through an environmental account. Companies started these accounts because their rivals started having them and today most large companies have a environmental account or sustainable development report. The information given by the companies have been seen as slanted, and others see it only as a part of the image production for the companies. There have been several investigations of the stakeholders of environmental reports and it is not clear who is the primary stakeholder, in other words who actually reads them. All different stakeholders have different views of what an environmental account should encompass.

As the environmental awarenesshas increasedin recent decadessohas the society?s demand forenvironmentalresponsible companies(Ammenberg, 2004).One way for companies to take responsibility and work with environmental issues is to implement anenvironmental management system(EMS). EMSserves as a tool for companies to systematically work with environmental issues and develop the company's environmental efforts. ISO 14001 is theEMSaccording to whichthat the majority of companies today choose to get certified(Brorson & Almgren, 2007). The introduction and operation of the ISO 14001 requires significant financial and human resources and it can therefore be questioned whether the environmental managementsystem is adaptable forall companysizes.The purpose of this studyis to examine whether EMScan provide environmental and economic benefits for companies of all sizes and ifthe conditions to get certifiedaccordingto ISO 14001 is the same for large and smallcompanies.A literature study was made to collect information on company'simplementation of ISO 14001.

The aim of this dissertation is to examine why smaller municipalities[1] in Sweden experience difficulties when implementing the 16 environmental objectives that are designed to solve Sweden's environmental problems.The theoretical framework used for this dissertation is implementation theory which provides three conditions that need to be met in order to have a successful implementation.  These three conditions have shaped the research questions that examine if Torsby municipality has the "understanding," "ability" and "will" needed to implement the decision correctly.  The dissertation employs a case study method to examine why Torsby municipality has experienced difficulties implementating the target: programmes and strategies for planning, which is an interim target to environmental objective number 15: A good built environment.  Qualitative text analysis and interviews with politicians and civil servants from Torsby municipality and the county administration board of Värmland have been conducted in order to answer the research questions.   The material used for this dissertation is mostly from the government bills that are the foundation of the Swedish environmental policy and the documents and reports about the environmental objectives that the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning (Boverket), the Swedish Environmental protection agency (Naturvårdsverket), and the Environmental objectives council (Miljörådet) have released.The result of this dissertation supports previous research which has shown that smaller municipalities have problems implementating the environmental objectives due to a lack of financial resources. This dissertation also shows that the problems can be due to a lack of understanding the purpose of the objectives.  This leads to a lack of political will to implement the objectives.  Since the municipalities do not have the political will to implement the objectives the appropriate resources needed for a successful implementation are not appointed and therefore the municipalities are not able to fully implement the environmental objectives. [1] Municipalities with less than 20 000 inhabitants..

In this bachelor thesis we have used a case study to examine the potential opportunities and obstacles an organization may have to internally implement a code of conduct with regard to the environmental guidelines. To succeed with the implementation of codes of conduct, companies need to ensure that what is provided to be implemented do this according to scheduled time targets, but also that is to be implemented in the organization actually is what is intended to be implemented, and that those that are involved in the implementation will be satisfied with result, this is because it is the employees who will follow the guidelines contained in the Code. Heide & Grönhaug (2002) argues that lack of communication is the main reason why the implementation in the business strategies fails. In this case study we have used primary data from interviews in the case company as well as secondary data from earlier research and information from the case company itself to develop our conclusions. The case study shows that the existing environmental awareness in an organization often is founded in common sense about how to act.

One of the biggest challenges in the human history is to prevent environmental pollution. Everybody has an indirect or direct influence on the environment through his or her consumption. The stakeholders are not just interested in price and quality, they are also interested in the circumstances of production and how this affects the environment. By taking environmental concern in public procurement it is possible to speed up the environmental adjustment of services and products. Environmental awareness has become more and more self evident in the environmental work.