With higher prices for oil and increased focus on fossil fuels impact on the environment the heating sector are searching for alternative fuels. Pellets are a quite new product whose production has risen exponential in recent years. Today there are small-, medium-and large-scale users, where the large-scale consumers are the heating sector. The heating sector is mainly using oil to cover the increased demand during cold periods. The purpose of this study is to analyze the potential of pellets if it would replace thermal power plants oil and coal. The study will also analyze the economic impact a conversion would mean for a heating plant and if the pellet is a reasonable substitute. 2008 statistics from the Swedish district heating association were analyzed and a calculation was performed to determine how many tons of pellets is needed to replace coal and oil.

Recently, the selections of ethical funds are increased; at the same time investors with social and moral preferences have increased in the capital market. There are currently debates on whether ethical funds perform better or worse than funds without ethical criteria. This also involves a vivid discussion on whether investors know about the consequences of investing in ethical funds. Therefore, this study involves theories about the rationality and decision theory, in addition to what mainly control the investment decisions. The study also discusses portfolio theory since this is one of the underlying theories behind fund management and its development.The purpose of this study is to explain if ethical limitations in the selection of securities affect risk and return in the fund portfolio.

To achieve the requirements to decrease emissions of greenhouse gases by 20 % by 2020, Swedenneeds to increase its use of bioenergy. In doing so it seems natural that those who already haveaccess to large amounts of biofuels in the form of by-products such as straw, wood chips anddigestible materials take advantage of these assets locally. By combining production of heat withpower production at the farm it may be possible to not only reduce the direct use of fossil fuel forheating but also reduce energy costs.The purpose was to simulate different cases of using a small scale biofueled combined heat andpower plant for farm-based systems. A MatLab-model was developed and used to draw conclusionsabout the costs for production of heat and electricity with different conversion technologies.The model uses climate data to simulate the variations in heat energy demand on a day-to-day basis.The given heat demand is the base of the simulation and from this the possible electric output iscalculated. This study has focused on the impact of the following properties: electric-, heat- andtotal efficiency, fuel, fuel price and specific fuel requirements.

We have chosen to write our essay in collaboration with Varbergs kommun, where our starting point is to improve energy efficiency by management control. Their occupation separates from a pure profit driven corporation and therefore the management controls have to be adapted accordingly.  The reason why we have chosen to write an essay about the management control opportunities to improve the energy efficiency depends on two different reasons. The first reason is that we find it very interesting, how with support from the management control it is possible to improve different parts of the operation. And the second reason is that Varbergs kommun expressed a wish that they wanted to improve their energy efficiency process.The purpose of the essay is to describe and analyze the opportunities with support from the management control to help improving the process of energy efficiency in a municipal operation.

We have chosen to write our essay in collaboration with Varbergs kommun, where our starting point is to improve energy efficiency by management control. Their occupation separates from a pure profit driven corporation and therefore the management controls have to be adapted accordingly.  The reason why we have chosen to write an essay about the management control opportunities to improve the energy efficiency depends on two different reasons. The first reason is that we find it very interesting, how with support from the management control it is possible to improve different parts of the operation. And the second reason is that Varbergs kommun expressed a wish that they wanted to improve their energy efficiency process.The purpose of the essay is to describe and analyze the opportunities with support from the management control to help improving the process of energy efficiency in a municipal operation.

In 1993 Sweden introduced a new Forest policy, with a larger freedom of action for the forest owners, but in the same time the forest owners are expected to take greater consideration of the forests and the environment, that is required by the law. This is necessary to be able to obtain the goals of the new policy. Therefore the demand for competence and guidance is larger than before. At the same period of time organisations where slimmed and trimmed during a economic recession and the question is how this has affected the number of employees on different levels in the organisations, the competence of the employees and their internal education and if these changes affects the possibility of implementing the forest policy. This study contains three points in time where measures were made, 1990, 1995 and 2000.

Purpose and aimThe purpose of this thesis has been to create a deeper understanding about the impact that the digitalization of the music business in the early 2000s and also the latter change, that in this paper is referred to as the sociodigital change, has had on artist brands. We will also analyze the positive and negative effects that this development may have had on the already existing brand environment and lastly also review the true importance of the professional industry?s competence. We have chosen the following research question in relation to the purpose; In what way has the basic conditions for artist brands within the music industry changed since the digitalization of the music industry in the early 2000s? MethodFor this study we initially took an inductive approach as we formed hypotheses based on experiences and previous knowledge which we then corroborated with theories.

The world economy of today is in an extensive financial crisis which has lead to the fact that people seek well placed investments and securing of capital, something that by many people can be found in forest investment. The price of forest estates has increased with 90 % during the last 5 years and marketing polls indicate a positive belief in the future among forest owners. The development of timber prices has not increased to the same extent as the forest property prices which implies that the property price not only reflect the yield value from the forest but also that the lumber value does not have such a meaningful role in the pricing of forest properties as proven earlier. This fact means that forest owners either invest their capital in forest in a speculative point of view or that the purchasers of forest properties invests in non monetary benefits that lacks a direct yield value. The purpose with this degree thesis is to increase the understanding of the pricing of forest properties with focus on the above mentioned fact.

The purpose of this study was to examine if women's career was affected by becoming a mother after 35 years old. It was also our intention to discover if it was an intentional or an unintentional choice to postpone giving birth just for the sake of the career. We have read articles that are implying that women´s career possibilities, combined with children, is difficult and of current interest in today's society. Science has shown that it no longer appears to be women's main life objective to give birth but they now also wants a career. We wanted to shed some light on the subject from two different angles, so we looked both from the women's perspective and from the employer's perspective.

The southern part of Sweden, Skåne, is frequently exposed to storms causing great damage to Norway spruce (Picea abies L. Karst.) stands. A storm during the winter 1999/2000 raised the attention of the problem. A lot of forest owners got large areas of spruce stands wind thrown during this storm. Can naturally regenerated birch (Betula sp.) be an alternative on these wind-exposed sites? This was the main question I was facing when discussilig the problems with Esben Möller Madsen, Söderåsens forest district. The aim of this master thesis was to present an economic analysis of Norway spruce versus birch.

In the future the Swedish pension system will face major problems. With an increasing aging population combined with a decreasing share of working population the financing of the pension system is becoming a bigger problem than previously predicted. This means the individual himself will have a bigger responsibility to invest money for their future retirement. It has been shown that a large proportion of the people who invests for their future pension have neither the interest nor the time to actively invest their pension capital. To make it easier for those who invest for their retirement, some Swedish banks have created so-called generation funds.

Outages in the electric grid can be costly for society. Because of this, reliability is one of the parameters used to regulate network companies. Reliability in electrical grids can be measured with SAIDI, system average interruption duration index, which for Fortum Distribution has increased in Stockholm?s distribution network (11 kV) in the early 2000?s.By using outage data for Stockholm from 2011-2013, sets of parameters to be used for reliability calculations in the network information program Tekla NIS were derived. Two different options for investment were then analysed: changing old cables with high fault frequencies, and installing automatic switching in distribution substations.

The aim of this thesis is to study the private owner structure in the Swedish forestry. This will be done with both a investigation of forest owners in Småland the year 2000 and 2001 and also a statistic research for the private forest owners in Sweden right now and over the years. In Sweden more than half of the total forest area is owned by private forest owner, witch is approximately 22 600 000 ha. Private forestry includes the owner categories private person, ordinary partnership and the estate of deceased persons. The main part of the private forestry is to be found in Norrland but also in the rest of Sweden private forestry constitute a large part of the forestry area.

The scope of this project is to make a comparison of costs associated with wind and nuclear power in order to decide which one of these is the most suitable in the case of an increased demand for electricity. It is also investigated if there are other factors that can influence the choice of energy source.An average cost is calculated in terms of kronor per kilowatt-hour (SEK/kWh) using cost of investment, operation & maintenance and taxes & subsidies. Total investment cost is recalculated to production cost using the annuity method at three different interest rates (6%, 9% and 12%).The comparison is made between three cases of wind power and two cases of nuclear power. For wind power there are two ocean-based (300MW and 100MW installed capacity, respectively) and one land-based (60MW) wind farm. For nuclear power there is one EPR-reactor (1600MW) and one AP1000-reactor (1100MW).

In the beginning of the 21th century several successful companies filed for bankruptcy. These bankruptcies have been known as large accounting scandals and the largest scandals did Enron and Worldcom stand for. These bankruptcies arose without any warning signal from the auditors about the companies? financial problems and their inability to continue as a going concern. The bankruptcies damaged the reputation of auditors and broad criticism has developed at the auditors? inability to discover companies? financial problems and their unwillingness to reveal a going concern opinion in the audit report.