In the middle of Australia there is a city called Alice Springs. The city has one of the highest amounts of daily sunshine hours and sun irradiation in the world. The Australian Government runs a project called Solar Cities, and Alice Springs is one of the participators. The main part of the goal with the Solar Cities project is to increase the amount of electricity generated by solar power and by doing that lower the impact on the environment. This thesis examines the possibilities for construction of a large scale solar power plant in Alice Springs. This is done to determine the potential of creating a more sustainable energy system in the city.

In the middle of Australia there is a city called Alice Springs. The city has one of the highest amounts of daily sunshine hours and sun irradiation in the world. The Australian Government runs a project called Solar Cities, and Alice Springs is one of the participators. The main part of the goal with the Solar Cities project is to increase the amount of electricity generated by solar power and by doing that lower the impact on the environment. This thesis examines the possibilities for construction of a large scale solar power plant in Alice Springs. This is done to determine the potential of creating a more sustainable energy system in the city.

Modern forestry requires a high degree of machine traffic for clear felling and scarification operations. The machines most frequently used are big and the traffic often results in tracks on the forest ground. There are many small streams running through a forest, in connection to logging operations, machines might cross these frequently. These crossings could result in the erosion of fine particulate inorganic matter, which ends up in the stream. The aim of this thesis was to give a general description of small forest streams of order-one in the county of Värmland and to determine the frequency of machine tracks in small streams.

Large volumes of excavated soil and rock are generated in building- and construction projects. These materials need to be transported longer and longer distances due to the densifications of cities. The transportation affects the environment in terms of noise and emissions, but also makes high demands on road infrastructure. To reduce the transport distances an increased responsibility for the excavated rock generated needs to be taken. Responsibility can be increased through an introduction of means of control.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks and fluxes in forest ecosystems are influenced by natural and human disturbances. In the tropical regions the highest Impacts on disturbance in forest C cycles are related to human activities such as conversion of natural lands to cropland and pasture areas and to forest plantations. The disturbances in the forest C cycles will release CO2 emissions to the atmosphere triggering global warming. In this study the focus was set in subtropical soils in Brazil, south extreme region of Bahia. The aim of the study was to investigate whether reforestation of Eucalyptus plantations under former pasture areas will help mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration.

Road transports stand for a great part of Sweden?s total CO2-emissions. Transports are expected to increase over the coming years, and with those the emissions. A greater environmental awareness leads to increased demands for environmentally friendly transport. The aim of this thesis is to study the consequences of changing transportation modes from road to railway.

Today green tree retention, together with leaving dead wood, is a common practice with the aim to reduce negative Impacts on biodiversity and environment due to clear-felling. To better understand whether this conservation practice also makes a long-term difference, it is important to know what happens to these trees after harvest. Few studies have made an assessment of what happens to retention trees over a longer time period. In this study I inventoried retention trees that were left at clear-cuts six, twelve and eighteen years ago. I carried out a re-inventory of 57 retention patches (divided into free-standing tree groups, small swamp forests and edge zones) and free standing dead trees, spread over 25 previous clear-cuts in central Sweden.

Low stumps represent on their own up to 80% of the dead wood remaining on clear cuts and therefore supply suitable habitat for saproxylic insects i.e. insects depending on dead wood for their survival. Recent stump harvesting activities threaten this substrate of ecological importance and increase the anthropogenic negative Impacts on these species. Because of technical and environmental reasons (nutrient leakage, erosion) guidelines for stump harvesting recommend to retain stumps standing in wet parts of clear cuts. However, stumps in wet positions might not be a satisfactory substrate for saproxylic insects and therefore might not be as much used as stumps in dry positions.

With the farming methods of the past century the agricultural landscape has changed. This has led to the fact that many habitats and species have been significantly reduced. Sweden is committed to the preservation of biodiversity through various conventions and laws. In the EU's Common Agricultural Policy there are currently agro-environmental schemes, which were created as an instrument for reducing the negative Impacts of agriculture on nature and environment. Within this system any farmer who perform environmental measures are financially compensated for this.

Timber floating operations in Scandinavia during the 19th and 20th centuries has contributed to severe negative Impacts on riverine ecosystems. Increase in water velocity and lack of stream bed heterogeneity as a result of stream channelization lead to increased bed load transport. Since availability and recruitment of new suitable spawning substrate in Scandinavian watercourses is sparse, spawning habitats for salmonids has become a scarce commodity. Lately, increasingly more attention has been given to the recreation and improvement of brown trout (Salmo trutta) spawning habitats in restoration projects. While much of the research on spawning habitat has been focused on evaluation of the influence that the constructed spawning grounds have on fish populations, few studies have been conducted to evaluate the persistence of these constructions over time. I evaluate erosion of constructed spawning beds as an effect of sediment transport attributable to water discharge.

With the farming methods of the past century the agricultural landscape has changed. This has led to the fact that many habitats and species have been significantly reduced. Sweden is committed to the preservation of biodiversity through various conventions and laws. In the EU's Common Agricultural Policy there are currently agro-environmental schemes, which were created as an instrument for reducing the negative Impacts of agriculture on nature and environment. Within this system any farmer who perform environmental measures are financially compensated for this.

Textiles are made in an unsustainable way and there is a need to find alternative ways and material to reduce the negative Impacts on the environment, humans and animals. Problems like pollution, excessive water consumption and loss of soil fertility is a result of this lack of diversity. It is a necessity to find innovative alternatives in other fabrics due to the unsustainable use of cotton and polyester fibers. As in many other countries in the Western part of the world, in Sweden there is a rapid turnover and increased selling of clothes that result in increased textile waste. About 15 kilogram of textiles (net inflow) is consumed per person each year.

Den textila industrin, en egen värld, är nu under rampljuset som en av de största miljöpåverkande industrierna. Precis som i fallet med många andra industrier så måste textilbranschen intensivt arbeta med att minska sin negativa påverkan på miljön. Slutmålet måste vara att helt balansera uttagen och insättningarna så att man skapar en bransch som blir klimat- och miljöneutral. I denna rapport har en livscykelanalys gjorts på en underställströja från Helly Hansen tillverkad av 99 % polypropylene. Inom denna livscykelanalys har vi noggrant studerat och undersökt fakta för att hitta de processer som har den största påverkan på miljön.

During the last decades, brand equity has been a priority topic for both practitioners and academics. In accordance with the structural changes in the economic settings caused by the so-called "new economy", corporations being confronted with a shift on perceived business value structure from tangible assets to intangibles. On the other hand firms increasingly are adopting more responsible behaviour towards their societies. In this context, one critical question is to understand how corporate conduct may affect brand equity. The purpose of this study was to find how brand equity (BE) measurement methods embrace corporate responsibility (CR), based on a literature review.

Each year, the coffee machines at Ericsson in Kista produce around 100 tons of ground coffee waste.The companies Coor Service Management, Löfbergs Lila and Selecta are all responsible for differentstages in the logistical chain in delivering coffee and, together with Ericsson, they want to increasetheir environmental benefit. The plan is to produce biogas through anaerobic digestion instead ofincinerating the coffee waste in a heating plant. The results are to be presented as different businesscases in which different biogas plants are compared with the reference case (heating plant),comparing costs and environmental Impacts.There are two major environmental benefits from producing biogas; reduced carbon dioxideemissions from when fossile fule is replaced by carbon neutral biogas, and reduced emissions fromreturning digestate from the bio reactor to farmland instead of using industrial fertelizer.In order to determine the biogas potential in coffee waste, a couple of properties had to bedetermined in a laboratory. Properties such as the dry substance content, heating value, moisturecontent and ash content. The results show that 100 tons coffee waste could produce around 16 500Nm3 biogas which would contain 163 MWh.The biogas reactor and upgrade plant both need energy gas to function and uses around 14 MWh ofthe produced gas.