Sustainable design - a study on sustainable design and its incentives and barriersThe purpose of this study was to investigate the incentives and barriers existing within companies focusing on eco-design. The aim was also to examine the consumers? thoughts on eco-design and sustainable products. A further aim was to try to concretize important lessons for future work on sustainable production and consumption. Two methods were used for completing this study; a literature study and a practical study consisting of interviews with companies focusing on eco-design and a survey among students.

Biogas is a renewable energy produced through anaerobic digestion, which means that organic matter is degraded by microorganisms under anaerobic conditions. The produced biogas can then be used for cogeneration, electricity, heat or upgraded to vehicle gas. Eskilstuna Energy & Environment AB has four digesters at Ekeby water sewage treatment plant, Eskilstuna. One of the biogas reactor (RK4) is equipped with a jet-mixing system while the remaining digester uses top-mixing. The mixing system is an important parameter to achieve optimum operating conditions for the process regarding gas production and degree of digestion.

Drain water heat recovery is an uncommon measure in multi-unit residential buildings. There istechnology available for the purpose but the knowing and experience of the heat recovery systems islittle. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the future potential of drain water heat recovery inmulti-unit residential buildings.A major part of the multi-unit residential buildings in Sweden were built during modernismen andrekordåren (1940?1975). Many of the buildings have worn out drain and water supply systems andmany are in need of a general refurbishment.

AbstractBackgroundEvery company has some kind of employee turnover and we can tell that som business has higher employee turnover than other business. Employee turnover is individual for all companies but in companies that is in the same business simularities can be seen. The employee turnover in the line of business hotel, merchandise trade and restaurants was according to Confederation of Swedish Enterprise closer to 40 % during the period of 2006-2007 and close to the business with highest turnover, the service sector. This is comparable to the buildning activity that with it?s 22 % is one of the business with lowest turnover.

Vårt syfte är att identifiera och analysera hur koncepten Slow Food och Slow City kan användas för att marknadsföra en plats och öka dess attraktivitet. Fokus kommer att ligga på de marknadsföringsstrategier som platserna använder idag samt de strategier som kan bli aktuella i framtiden. Vi har funnit att de italienska städer vi studerat har en genomtänkt strategi och har gjort tydliga avvägningar i arbetet med sin platsmarknadsföring. De har tänkt långsiktigt vid implementeringen av koncepten och fokuserat på att marknadsföra sig internt hos stadens invånare. Städerna har resurser som är väl knutna till koncepten Slow Food och Slow City, men använder inte själva begreppen i sin externa marknadsföring.

In the pilot plant at Hammarby Sjöstad, Sjöstadsverket, several new methods are tested in order to achieve a good use of resources. When a new technique is considered it is often the performance of the technique itself, under given conditions, that is evaluated. However, in order to evaluate the overall function the whole picture is needed. With a system analysis it becomes possible to make a comparison where all the positive aspects are put up against the negative ones, for the technique itself as well as its requirements. In this way the influence that minor components have on an entire system can be considered.This report presents a system analysis of an anaerobic membrane reactor (MBR) with a VSEP-membrane (Vibratory Shear Enhanced Process).

The Chinese government´s aim to be self-sufficient in food production in combination with the increased Food consumption in China has put high pressure on the productivity within the Chinese agricultural sector (He j et al, 2010). In order to increase the productivity, modernization and adoption of new farming techniques are essential. The opportunity to adopt and import foreign technology has lately been possible in China, as more authority and decision rights have been given to the individual farmers and the country has opened up for foreign trade (Zheng, 2012 & Fan, 1991). A more open Chinese market enables new opportunities for foreign agricultural companies to expand their businesses by introducing their products to Chinese farmers. But to succeed with this strategy the Chinese farmers must be willing to adopt these, for them new innovations. Minimum tillage is a tillage practice used worldwide that is suitable in northern China where drought and erosion are the main problems in the crop production (pers.com., Arvidsson, 2012). Potential users? opinion of new innovations such as minimum tillage is closely related to adoption (Rogers, 2003).

In today?s modern age, energy consumption has become a major issue, both from an environmental viewpoint and cost perspective. Because of a rapid technologic change and increased costs of production of electricity, the demand to develop effective methods for energy efficiency industries have grown.The electricity-intensive industries, such as plastic industry, the demand to reduce energy consumption has grown significantly over the past 10 years, which have led to the development of different methods to determine and locate energy-consuming parts in the industry. This also means being able to prioritize and organize activities in the industry.In this study the measurements of voltage, current, power and PF performance on injection molding machines (K-TEC 275 form Ferromatik Milacron in Germany) with a focus to locate, within a machine, various measures that could improve energy use in the plastics industry, in this case RostiGP in Gislaved. These measurements have been carried out with the help of a power quality clamp meter to carry out time logs of the machines for some time during normal word rate.

The examination has been performed at Bjerking AB, which is an architectural and engineering company. Bjerking AB has the ambition to be a member of Green Building.The Green Building program developed in year 2005 by The European Commission, the program is an environmental system with the aim to improving energy efficiency within the sectors of non-residential buildings. The minimum requirements to participate the program are following: in new-built buildings the calculated energy consumption must be 25 % lower than the requirements in the BBR (Building regulations) and in refurbishment the reduction must be 25 % lower than before the optimization.The aim of this study has been to examine and review the company Bjerking AB's energy efficiency work in the project of building the school/kindergarten S:ta Maria Alsike, where the goal is to get this building Green Building classed. A description of requirements to become a member of the Green Building has also accomplished in the thesis.The methods performed in this study are literature review, searches on the Internet, studies on the project database for facts/values, calculation of energy consumption and interviews of members of the Green Building. The following issues have been dealt with in the report;-          Did the building in the project manage the requirement to achieve an   energy consumption that is 25% lower than the requirements in BBR?-          What technical measures/system was selected in the building?-          What kind of cooperation was the project based on?-          What is required for consultancy companies and real estate owners to become members of the Green Building?The study of the project and calculation of estimated energy consumption in the building, give the result 47 kWh/m2, year.

In recent years, moisture damages have been noticed in rendered, undrained stud walls. The design is built on the principle one-stage tightening which means that there is no air gap in the construction. The damages have occurred when water has permeated through the rendering in leaking connections and fittings for windows, doors, canopies, balconies, terraces and awnings. Behind the plaster carrier, which consists of either polystyrene or rigid mineral wool, plasterboard has often been used as a wind protection barrier. In many cases the wind protection barrier and the underlying wooden studs have been exposed to mould and in some cases even rot.

The study aims to reduce energy consumption in apartment buildings where individual metering and charging of heat is applied. The aim is to develop planning and design for individual metering and charging in apartment buildings.The study is based on literature review, interviews and case study that include analysis of existing documents. Interviews were carried out with the property developer and the involved consultants who planned the apartment building Yasuragi. To investigate the differences the condominium association has noted in heat consumption between flats, the debit values of the heat were used to discern which houses that were furthest from the average consumption. On these flats there were temperature measurements and thermal photo shoots made for discriminating behavior and possible construction techniques which could be the explanation for the heat spread.Boverket shows that the consumption of heat can be reduced by 10-20% after insertion of individual metering and charging in an apartment block.

This paper studies patterns of consumption within a product category. Using make-up as a base for the study, we applied the Mokken Scale to examine if consumers follow a hierarchical pattern when buying items within the product category. Based on a survey of 250 female respondents, we establish a hierarchic scale for consumption. Assuming generally accepted attributes for determining physical attractiveness, the results of the Mokken Scale study were cross referenced with a survey among 200 male and female respondents. Students were asked to evaluate pictures of a model using different combinations of make-up, i.e.

This study is about how a swedish brand within the food industry that experiences a crisis following a product failure. It focuses on three areas following the crisis and these are crisis management, recovery strategies and brand management. This study seeks to explain how these areas interact in relation to massive exposure to mass media and how they interact restore the brand's potential loss of reputation. This study was conducted as a case study with a deductive and qualitative approach. The data gathered to this study was mainly based on newspaper articles and complemented with semi-structured interviews with twelve local retailers of the brand..

In June 2013 a debate concerning the consumers? right to a label of origin on food packages was held in the Swedish parliament (www, Riksdagen, 2014). The debate was sparked by some food scandals where labelling was falsely used, claiming something that was not true ? the horse-meat scandal, frozen strawberries infected by Hepatitis A, pork sold as beef, etc. These cases were not only wrong in terms of food safety, but also fraudulent and threating consumers? right to fair origin labelling.

The subject of this bachelor-level thesis in archaeology in the transition from archaic sapiens to anatomically modern humans, and what might have caused this transition. A part of the study aims to prove or disprove whether an increased consumption of shellfish might have caused this development. Another part of the essay deals with the connection of said evolution and the suggested emergence of cultural and ritual practices in South Africa circa 100 000 BP and an evaluation of the arguments concerning the aquatic ape hypothesis, and their usefulness for the subject.The result of investigation of the theory about the increased consumption of marine resources as a probable cause of the last biological step of creating our species points to the conclusion that it is a probable explanation. There is even some evidence that there could be a connection between consumption of marine resources and the "Out of Africa 2"-theory. It is harder to find a proven connection between the suggested emergence of cultural and ritual practices, even some evidence seems to strengthen the idea.