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.

Medias rapporter om nedskärningar i välfärd och service, inte minst på Sveriges landsbygd, kommer allt tätare. Allt fler bygder väljer nu att ta aktiv del i att kompensera för dessa och gjuta nytt liv i bygden, bland annat genom att starta lokala utvecklingsbolag i en ny form av aktiebolag med särskild vinstutdelningsbegränsning (svb). I denna kandidatuppsats inom ämnet landsbygdsutveckling undersöker jag utvecklingsbolagens lokala roll och hur de kan förstås i förhållande till det senmoderna samhället. Frågan har undersökts genom en kvalitativ intervjustudie i sörmländska Stavsjö där engagerade bildat bolaget ?Kiladalens utveckling? och genom mitt deltagande i en nationell träff för så kallade svb-bolag.

The harbour in Arvika is closed down and the industry that has been established in the area is now beeing wound up. A deepened comprehensive plan for the area is under progress in the municipality. The intentions are for instance that the harbour should be integrated with the city and that Arvika is facing a lake should be more apparent from the city center. The harbour should also contribute to a more attractive city. These intentions have hence been the starting point of my undergraduate theses, which has resulted in a proposal on how to develop the harbour. During the process I have analysed the city image, how the area is used today and the public places in the city centre.

By immersion in the situation of the food production today and a historical study of how past development has led us to this point, one goal of this essay is to discuss whether the current way of farming can be applied in a sustainable future. Another objective of the essay is to study the vision Vertical farming as an alternative approach, and to focus on different aspects of this phenomenon in order to provide as comprehensive a picture as possible.The paper, thus, seeks to broaden the views for alternative approaches regarding a well-established method which we often take for granted. The aim is also to initiate a discussion around the need to also take radical ideas in regard if we want to face the future in a sustainable manner. The method is a qualitative literary study where scientific articles and papers have been used to discuss the issues: why has the idea of Vertical farming arisen, what is Vertical farming and how is the Vertical Farm meant to operate? Does Vertical farming have a place in the sustainable city of the future? For a long time us humans lived as one with nature, in a symbiotic relationship in which we gave and took as a functioning part of an ecosystem.

The aim of this study is to investigate ex-Jehovah's witnesses' experiences with accessibility in relation to sexual and reproductive health. The purpose is to build on the understanding of how closed Christian communities view the power over their own bodies in relation to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). The results are examined and analyzed through Foucault's ideas about power. The thesis is built upon an exploratory point of view, where the focus is to examine the experiences of former Jehovah's witnesses. The theoretical framework assumes that there are different types of power relations, specifically in the form of biopower, disciplinary power and governmentality. Through semi-structured interviews, six former members have been interviewed. The results indicate the complex relation between Jehovah's witnesses and several forms of power.

The right to the city has lately become the rallying cry for many urban social movements all over the world to challenge neoliberal planning, gentrification, the privatization of urban commons and growing spatial and social gaps in city and society. This senior essay studies urban social movements that in different ways advocate the idea of the right to the city. The term right to the city was coined in the late 1960s by French urban theorist Henri Lefebvre, who promoted the idea of the city as a common, a space belonging to everyone. The right to the city is not ?a return to traditional cities?, but ?a right to urban life? (1996:158).This study focuses on the city of Hamburg.

This is my final thesis in landscapeplaning at the Swedish University ofAgricultural Sciences (SLU). I discuss howthe countryside should be planned, witha sustainable perspective. In the study Iexamine four important conditions forplanning.The countryside is often defined bywhat it is not which makes it difficult todescribe in general terms. The definition ofthe term countryside in this study is takenfrom the National Rural DevelopmentAgency (Glesbygdsverket). The conclusionis: Planners and scientists should have anunderstanding for the complexity of thecountryside; otherwise there is a risk oflosing the characteristics of the country.The legislation, goals and conventionswhich have an impact on the Swedishcountryside are both national and international.To find out how the settlementdevelopment is dealt with, I havestudied the Swedish building legislations(among others, plan- och bygglagen andmiljöbalken).Similar to the difficulties on finding asuitable definition for the term countryside,it is complex to define the term sustainabledevelopment.

Hur förenar man på bästa sätt två skilda funktionsprogram, privata och allmänna intressen på en central plats i Stockholms citykärna?.

Our planet is faced with enormous challenges as the extreme weather events related to the human-caused climate change continue to gain strength. The scale of the problem has made changing human behaviour the central focus of sustainable development, and both public and private sector are expected to gain relevant expertise and introduce this work in their agenda. Over its 40-year history, social marketing has become an established field providing tools for social change, but compared to health promotion, sustainability has not been a major focus of social marketing research so far. At the same time, sustainable lifestyles are embedded in complex systems where both individual factors and those of physical and social environment play a defining role in their adoption. Communities are a good example of such environments, and they became the key focus of Community-Based Social Marketing, which combines different insights from psychology to suggest a step-by-step framework for crafting behaviour change campaigns. However, it has not been applied to larger and diverse communities, like cities, and has not focused on sustaining new behaviour over time, which is crucial for creating sustainable lifestyles.

This essay investigates the statements of Växjö municipality?s motives for some of its many environmental projects. The aim of the essay is to be theory-testing as to see how a municipality/city which promotes itself as being ?green? motivates its efforts in the environmental area. Växjö city promotes itself as ?The greenest city in Europe?, an award appointed to the city by BBC and other international media.

The review of Integrated green spaces in urban areas ? A case study of inner Brisbane highlight the significance of addressing characteristics, qualities and landscape values in our outdoor environment. The importance of green spaces to the wellbeing of people in the city and the ecological, social and cultural values they carry are widely recognised in the field of urban and regional planning. At the same time population growth, climate change and urban development put planners and scientists in a challenging position where new solutions must be put on the agenda in order to accomplish sustainability. Open space strategies, collaboration between stakeholders, public participation, learn from earlier failings and a ?value-led? approach facilitate the managing of open space. Brisbane is located in the fastest growing metropolitan region in Australia. The city´s open space landscapes offer cultural, geographical, recreational, social and scenic amenity assets, which make a major contribution to the regions identity they a wide world known for.

The goal with my project was to explore what it is that distinguishes Berlin as a city and then translate that into abstract patterns. The patterns are made for wallpaper and are presented in a book as a collection.After spending six months almost constantly abroad visiting many different citys I began to wonder what it is that makes a city unique. Sometimes it feels as though cities are reduced to the sum of their famous sights. But of course a city is more than that. It?s the people who live in it, the history, architecture and culture.

Denna uppsats undersöker hur deltagare i arbetsmarknadspolitiska program upplever deltagandet och effekten av programmen. Studien riktar sig specifikt mot fas 3 inom jobb- och utvecklingsgarantin, dit individer som varit arbetslösa under flera års tid skrivs in. Problemområdet omfattas av hur arbetslivets förändring leder till komplikationer för individer som är arbetslösa. Sju medverkande intervjupersoner deltog i studien, där semi-strukturerade intervjuer användes. Resultaten visar att deltagarna i programmet upplever att de dagliga aktiviteterna är meningsfulla, men att det politiska och byråkratiska ramverket leder till försämrat välmående och hopplöshet.

This thesis deals with urban planning in connection with social and spatial integration.It´s a study of a new planning project in Malmö in southern Sweden. It´s an interesting case because this new, fashionable area will be located next to areas facing socio-economical challanges and stagnation. By using two theoretical models I analyse how the visions for planning a city are formulated and applied when policy is going to be operated. My models are ?the balanced community? and ?the dual community? .The conclusion is that the focus for Malmö and Hyllie is going towards emphasing the creation of attractive but segregated districs in a city.

This final project includes an analysis and a programme proposal for the area Bergsbrunna södra. The area is situated along the railway between Uppsala ? Stockholm, just south of Uppsala city. A new railway station is planned here, which make the area attractive as residential area. There are several values to take into consideration when developing an area. An extensive analysis and valuation may define and protect different characters and values, and also find the places most suitable to build upon. The area consists of three separate characters of landscape: the wide open cultivated fields, the hilly wooden ground and the more varying little valley. There are visual, cultural, social and ecological values to preserve. The south part of the area is woods with high natural values that borders to a national park in the natural forest of Lunsen.