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).

This report is about planning a demolition. The purpose of this report is that it should become a base for a demolition of house J at the Academic hospital in Uppsala, and also to make general help for planning a demolition. This report also contains a part about how a change in the work environment affects general people. The work started with studies of literature and design of the general part of the report and then continued with a practical study of house J. From the experience of the first two parts of the report a general help for planning a demolition was shaped.

Sewage sludge contains plant nutrients and has earlier been utilised as fertilizer to cropland. Unfortunately not only plant nutrients but also heavy metals, pathogens and organic contaminants tend to accumulate in sludge. The suitability to use sewage sludge in agriculture has therefore been subject to several discussions over the years. The Swedish food industry does no longer accept sludge as fertiliser for Swedish producers. In 1999 the Swedish parliament accepted several objectives for environmental protection. In order to prevent environmental pollution and further exploitation of the earth crust, one of these objectives confirm that phosphorous from sewage shall be recirculated to arable land.

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.

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.

Today environmental management systems (EMS) are common documents (more correctly, a combination of documents) that direct, steer and regulate environmental efforts within many companies. The intention of EMS is that its guidelines are reflected in how the employee carries out his everyday work tasks. This study aims to illuminate the attitudes that exist regarding the EMS at ALSTOM Power Sweden. By using questionnaires and interviews as a method to communicate with employees,a study of the existing attitudes regarding the EMS was carried out. The results were analyzed categorically and statistically and show that there are consistent attitudes among employees, but that there are also inconsistent attitudes.

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..

The thesis addresses the issue of when a bankruptcy estate, under environmental law, is responsible for the debtor?s environmentally hazardous activities. A fundamental principle of insolvency law is that the bankruptcy estate is not responsible for the debtor?s prior obligations. The environmental legal rules do not distinguish whether an injunction liability is directed against a bankruptcy estate or another operator.

During the spring semester of 2012 did Petra Hollsten independently a thesis on reducing the environmental impact of capsule for coffee, tea and chocolate. The work was performed at Karlstad University, Faculty of Technology and Science under the Bachelor of Science program in innovation, technology and design. The project's scope is at 22.5 points.The employment for this project is the company Löfbergs Lila AB in Karlstad. Supervisor at the Principal has been Maria Herou Wallner and Sandra Lyxell, product managers. Supervisor at Karlstad University is Monica Jakobsson, lecturer and program leader for innovation and design engineering program.

The purpose of this dissertation is to describe and analyse the effects of tourism in developing countries and the attitudes and working methods of Swedish tour operators towards sustainable tourism. We have chosen to use a qualitative research according to a hermeneutical view. We have carried through in-depth interviews with eight tour operators. The theories have been divided into the effects of tourism and sustainable tourism goals which have social, economic and environmental starting points. The empiricism describes the work and activities of the tour operators and compiles the interview material divided into attitudes on tourism effects and responsibilities.

With increasing energy prices and increased focus on the environment we saw the need for companies to get control over their energy use and their emission of carbon dioxid. An analysis tool that integrates both these areas is, with our knowledge, not available on the market today. Therefore, our project became to develop such a tool.By doing this degree project we would like to clarify that energy consumption and environmental impact are integrated. The less energy consumed by today?s society the smaller the environmental impact will be.

?Ecosystem services are the ecosystems direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human well-being.? In order to reach the generation target and the environmental objectives it is important to increase the awareness of biodiversity and ecosystem services and it?s importance to human welfare and simultaneously highlighting the value of ecosystem services. The value of ecosystem services should be integrated into economic standpoints, political considerations and other decisions in the society. In today?s society there is a problem concerning that the value of ecosystem services are not considered in economic terms, which can result in solutions that are unfavorable for our welfare (Ministry of Environment, 2012).

This thesis tackles the subject concerning arguments as a conceptual basis forunderstanding the general strategy of the European Union Commission on issuesconcerning EU-harmonized environmental taxes, politically delicate and intergovernmentaldependent. The Commission's official proposals, communications and other relevant documents are subject to inquiry, where the theoretical bases are that harmonized environmental taxes in the EU is an issue conceived as supported by academic debate, and where the institutional arrangement in relation to an European-national dimension alongside the discursive context, allows meaningfulspace for arguments. The study makes a distinction between substantial (environmental cancerns in itself) and instrumental (other benefits, mostly economic ones) rationality as a foundation in various types of arguments.The study's main findings are that the Commission's official documents over the past 20 years, have been trying to keep a strong image of reason and knowledge based arguments for an EU-wide environmental tax reform. In particular, the types of arguments tend to appeal to the Member States by stressing the instrumental rationality in a European environmental tax reform, indicating the value of good arguments as a part of the Commission's main strategies. In sum, this may have further theoretical suggestions concerning questions of environmental and elimate change policies in a European context or other more general studies relying on theoretical assumptions of logics of argument, legitimacy or studies of motives behind action strategies in politically sensitive issues such as taxation at supranationallevel..

Syftet med detta examensarbete är att beskriva den lagstiftande bakgrunden till handeln med utsläppsrätter samt att granska hur det inledande förfarandet av handelssystemet har genomförts i Sverige..