As the environmental requirements on businesses increase from various stakeholders, the incentives for businesses to work more with environmental issues also increase. Historically, the requirements were focusing on companies with direct emissions from operations. Lately, the environmental impacts that occur indirectly as results of corporate activities have become more topical. Companies and organizations that mainly offer services often have a greater indirect than direct environmental impact. This is because they are affecting third parties, which in turn have a direct environmental impact.

Författarna till examensarbetet har intervjuat tre företag som tillsammans lämnade in över 15 000 förbättringsförslag år 2010. Avsikten med examensarbetet var att finna exempel på hur företag arbetar med Ständiga förbättringar i praktiken.Examensarbetet påbörjades med en litteraturstudie med Ständiga förbättringar som bas. Litteraturstudien fokuserade på implementering av Ständiga förbättringar, dess framgångsfaktorer och fallgropar. Efter detta genomfördes intervjuer på tre företag med en kvalitetsansvarig och en operatör i den mån det gick. Staffan Olsson, Operation Excellence Manager på Coca-Cola Enterprises Sverige AB, Håkan Lööw, Operations Manager, och Mulugeta Gerzgher, teamleader på sterilavdelningen på St.

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.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has the potential to be used for the diagnosis and study of osteoarthrosis in the equine tarsal region. In the development of new diagnostic MRI techniques cadaver specimens are often used. To allow the use of cadaver legs for these types of studies it is important to know the effect of time after death on the MRI image. Since the relaxation times are temperature dependent, it is interesting to examine whether the time after death and the temperature of the cadaver may play a role in the image appearance and quality. The radio pulse sequences that show the different types of tissues are also important to know when pathological evaluation with MRI is used.

In many European countries there is an increasing concern about the occasionally high concentrations of nitrate and pesticides in drinking water. The advent of the EU Water Framework Directive particularly highlights this. The directive states that all large drinking water sources should be identified and protected from pollution before 2009 and that by 2015 all water bodies should reach a 'good status'. In Sweden about 60 percent of the drinking water sources have protection areas. This means that about 700 new water protection areas need to be designated before 2009. This will affect many farmers, restricting their farming practices. The purpose of this study was to investigate which methods are used in other countries concerning nitrate and pesticide pollution from agriculture. From this, the expectation was to generate ideas on what could be undertaken in Sweden when designating new protection areas.

Wastewater handling of private sewage systems has become an all increasing matter. In Stockholm region the 90 000 private sewage systems contribute with larger phosphorus flows to the Baltic Sea than the two biggest sewage plants in the area, Henriksdal and Käppala, contribute together, even though these two plants purify wastewater from more than one million inhabitants. When summer house areas turn into areas for permanent living ? transition areas ? the load on the existing systems increases, systems that already often are unsatisfying. In those areas it is not clear what the best system choice is; On-site systems for single households; Local collective systems or Connection to central systems.

This bachelor of economics paper discuss that the increasing globalization has put the small companies in the Swedish textile and clothing industry in a situation where internationalization has become a necessity. Furthermore has the European Union lead to that this type of companies has to seek growth on foreign markets with great socio cultural distance from the home country, Sweden. Nowadays there?s no time to internationalize in the same course of action like before. Before, the Swedish companies begun their operations abroad in fairly nearby countries and only gradually penetrated more far-flung markets.

Anhöriga bär en stor del av ansvaret för äldre men i olika lagar och riktlinjer diskuteras sällan anhörigas roll eller samhällets ansvar för anhöriga. Hemvårdsbidrag är ett kontantbidrag som ges av kommunen till en person i ordinärt boende för att betala en anhörig för utförd hjälp i hemmet. Vilka effekter ett hemvårdsbidrag får som stöd för anhöriga problematiseras sällan. Är det så att pengarna fungerar som ett stöd eller är det ett sätt för samhället att fly från sitt ansvar? Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka och analysera några biståndsbedömares syn på vem som har ansvar för äldres omsorg; samhället eller anhöriga? Vidare är syftet att studera biståndsbedömares syn på hemvårdsbidrag, hur hemvårdsbidraget påverkar situationen för de anhöriga och om detta resonemang skiljer sig beroende på i vilken typ av stadsdel biståndsbedömarna arbetar. I den kvalitativa studien görs dels en litteraturstudie och dels intervjuas åtta biståndsbedömare i åtta olika stadsdelar i Göteborg.

In the last decade, member states of the European Union have adopted a range of measures to decrease the dependency on fossil fuels. This has led to an increased use of biomass in heat and power production. In some countries, the lack of forest resource has led to large scale power producers importing their biomass needs. Due to high energy content and homogeneity, wood pellets have become an internationally traded commodity used for large scale power production. The Baltic States have emerged as one of the largest wood pellet exporting regions in Europe.

Product development cycles become shorter and shorter. The time from idea to market has become an important competitive factor. Despite this, methods used for making the product development process faster are surrounded with uncertainty about their efficiency. The purpose of the thesis is to describe the pros and cons of ?best practice? methods for shortening lead times and how these methods effect the lead times in research and development.

Inledningen beskriver bakgrunden till de val kring gästhamnsverksamheten på Marstrand som Kungälvs kommun idag står inför. Problemet delas därefter upp i sina separata beståndsdelar och en överblick över Marstrand, privat respektive kommunal drift samt båtturismen och dess utveckling ges läsare. I Metodavsnittet behandlas den kvalitativa fallstudieformen som valts för att undersöka Kungälvs kommuns möjligheter att utveckla Marstrands gästhamn genom att öka kunskapen kring driftsformer av gästhamnar i Skandinavien. Urvalet av gästhamnar preciseras och motiveras samt hur uppsatsförfattarna sökt uppnå god validitet och reliabilitet på uppsatsen. Den Teoretiska referensramen redogör för huvuddragen i Aktieägarperspektivet, Intressent?perspektivet samt Agent?Principalteorin som tillsammans ligger till grund för uppsatsens analys och slutsats. Empirin presenterar resultatet från den kartläggning som gjorts av urvalets respektive hamnar. En inblick i bland annat drifts? och ägarförhållanden, syftet med gästhamnsverksamheten, differentiering samt olika särdrag ges. I Analys och Slutsatskapitlen görs inledande en driftsövergripande analys som lyfter fram likheter och olikheter hamnarna.

The well-being of employees has become a key concept in the rhetoric of the company boards and business literature of today. There is however not much statistic evidence of a connection between economic results and the perceived working climate. This thesis sets out to investigate whether there is a positive correlation between economic results and working climate on a work group level. It also aims to study which specific working climate factors influence the results. In order to meet its purpose this thesis analyzes employee satisfaction questionnaire data and economic results from more than 300 work groups.

Nature conservation has for a long time been founded on the assumption that high ecological values depend on low human impact. In Sweden this has led to forests with these characteristics being strictly protected from human influences. However, it is also known that historical land-use can enhance ecological values in forests. Mountainous forests in Sweden, which have not been affected by modern forestry, have for a long time been considered as untouched by people. However, forest history research has in recent years shown that even these areas have been used by people for a long period of time.

Unwanted vegetation on the land of electric transforming stations is a problem, in the sense that it contributes to higher fire risks and also constitutes an obstacle for people performing maintenance operations at the station. Such unwanted vegetation is controlled using herbicides and mechanical measures. Since the use of herbicides implies environmental hazards, there is a need to find alternative ways of fighting the unwanted vegetation. Investigation into suitable plants for ground cover, trials in the greenhouse, trials in the field, soil analyses and compilation of experiences from similar trials are parts of this work. The paper also contains analyses of possible environmental benefits and economical gains. There is also a final discussion of some proposals regarding alternative weed controlling methods.

Executive summary This master thesis was originally based on a specific assignment given to the authors from ABB Full Service, a unit specializing in providing maintenance outsourcing: ?How can ABB Full Service expand its offering of providing fundamental maintenance by seamlessly incorporating the business concept with competencies and solutions from other ABB divisions?? The academic issue was developed throughout the thesis, resulting in the following formulation: ?From an organizational perspective; how can service providers bring continuous added value to intra-organizational outsourcing partnerships?? Many of the key findings of this thesis are reflected in the issue. The term intra-organizational outsourcing is a proposed addition to the terminology in the academic discourse on outsourcing. The definition of the term is: ? Where an organization outsources a business process interlinked with the physical operations, requiring the service provider to take over a preexisting unit and its employees.This is an accurate description of the form of outsourcing that ABB Full Service is engaged in.