The purpose of this study is to examine if the experience of whale watching can lead to increased knowledge of environmental problems. We also want to find out whether increased knowledge in turn could lead to changing environmental attitudes and behaviors. The theoretical framework consists of theories about sustainable tourism, ecotourism and responsible environmental behavior. The paper also has a section where previous research on ecotourism impacts on behavior and attitudes is discussed and subsequently addressed in the analysis section.Data has been collected through a case study where seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals who participated in whale watching. The results show that all respondents had greater knowledge of whales by their experiences, the degree of knowledge was due to respondents' prior knowledge.

This report was written by Lisa Bengtson and Hanna Paradis and describes the degree thesis "Environmental impacts of solid waste treatment in the Metropolitan Region, Santiago, Chile ? a comparison between current system and incineration with energy recovery". The purpose of this thesis was to investigate if incineration with energy recovery could be motivated through an environmental perspective as an alternative to landfilling of solid waste in Santiago, Chile. The study was performed with Life Cycle Analysis as a theoretical base. In Santiago, situated in the thirteenth region of Chile, Región Metropolitana, lives 6,5 million inhabitants. The major part of the solid waste produced in the region is landfilled on three different sanitary controlled landfills situated outside the city center.

In the last few years the environment becomes more watchful, even for us farmers. All agricultural enterprises that exceed 200 animal units must be tested according to regulation of environment. A farm business with 200 animal units and more is classed ?environmentally hazardous activities? and has to make an environmental impact assessment for the business you have today, and the activity after expansion. Before you can construct a building and expand the numbers of animals is a lot of applications to make. I have in this project restricted me to establish a environmental impact assessment and a consultation foundation. To make a environmental impact assessment is the big part of the application. The environmental impact assessment take a lot of time and you need skills for all the rules in the environmental code to be abele to make an environmental impact assessment approved. The environment codes purposes (1 kap 1 § Miljöbalken) is to rule the laws. The purpose of the environment code is to promote sustainable development which will assure a healthy and sound environment for present and future generations. Definitions of a ?environmentally hazardous activities? 9 kap 1§ Miljöbalken) shall mean the discharges of wastewater, solid matter or gas from land, buildings or structures onto land or into water areas or ground water.

The problem area was identified due to the fact that research within internal audit is fragmented and insufficient, simultaneously to internal audit becoming more common in the public debate. Crises and scandals in companies such as Enron in the US and Skandia in Sweden have resulted in new regulations regarding how companies should be governed. These regulations have been established in Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) in the US, and in Sweden the Swedish code for corporate governance will be implemented in 2005. The regulations imply that companies must provide sound internal control and to accomplish that, companies should have an auditing and consulting internal audit function. The Swedish code for corporate governance denotes that companies can decide to comply or explain why the code is not complied.

The environment became an established issue on the international political agenda after World War 2. How to preserve natural resources became an issue that concerned several powerful participants, affected by changed conditions in the environmental legislation. This paper is a study of the growing environmental work within the multinational Swedish corporations Boliden, IKEA and SAS and how it was affected by the globalization. The material studied is environmentally related information produced by the companies and also interviews with the Environmental Managers. The information provided has been analyzed and compared with well-known opinions of globalization, trying to find out how the process of globalization has affected the handling of environmental work within the companies.

With the introduction of the Swedish Code for Corporate Governance in December 2004, most companies listed on the major Swedish stock exchanges were required to have a nomination committee responsible for, among other things, evaluating the incumbent board and nominating new candidates. This master thesis aims at analyzing the effects of these nomination committees on institutional investors in their corporate governance, through a qualitative study of 13 interviews. We have found that institutional investors have become more active through their participation in nomination committees and that they have gained more influence over the companies in which they own shares. We believe that in reality nomination committees have more influence over the selection of the board than was intended when the Swedish Code was written..

Concerns for the environment and our impact on it are becoming more prevalant; however, we rarely act accordingly. Consumers mainly choose products based on perceived personal benefits despite the environmental motives that increasingly affect them. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the major drivers behind the purchase of ecological wine. A quantitative study was conducted, using Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as an initial starting point. The subsequent model was then completed with three variables: environmental concern, feelings and word-of-mouth.

The project this report is handling has been implemented on NBB, Nordisk Bilbelysning AB in Linköping. The company produces and develops lightning and searchlights for all types of vehicles. Lately NBB´s supplier of electronics, OSRAM, has developed a mercuryfree xenon lightsource. Mercury is one of the most hazardous environmental waste and to get rid of the mercury entirely in the lightsource is a big step that means alot for the environment.This lightsource will be placed in one of NBB´s worksearchlights called My, and will be sold as an alternative to mercurycontaining searchlights. NBB wants to put an environmental label on this product and they want to have essential information about the product that is needed for the production.

The representative democracy has become weakened during the last decades. At the same time the United Nations declared at the Rio de Janeiro meeting in 1992 that environmental problems can best be solved by involvement of all concerned citizens in decision-making. The main purpose of this study has been to examine if citizens panels is a possible way to involve citizens in environmental decision-making and what the outcomes can be. Furthermore the study has investigated what the participation has contributed to environmental politics and how representative the results have been. This has been carried out by investigating the Piteåpanel in the municipality of Piteå by conducting interviews.The result of the study shows that the involvement of the citizens in the decision-making influenced the environmental politics of the municipality.

With the rise of the internet especially and information- and communication technology in general, the opportunities for fast and effective communication and sharing of information have proliferated. In relation to the new technologies, the citizens? demands on organizations? communicative efforts have increased. Today?s citizens have high standards regarding transparency, the opportunity to dialogue and have hopes to influence the public sector.

The means to political participation at the local level in Sweden are changing and this change is analyzed through a case study. The first aim is to explore the forms of public political participation in Swedish municipal Älvkarleby, namely public question time in local government, citizen motions and open meetings. A part of this is also to analyze he every day contact between citizens and representatives. The second aim concerns the reasons why politicians decide to support these means to participationThe empirical material consists mainly of semi structured interviews with local politicians, civil servants, participating citizens and local press. Official documents such as public minutes are also used in the process of creating an image of local participation.Local political participation is found to be limited but yet having the potential to strengthen democracy, provided that public decision-makers are open to a dialogue with the participants.Using Kjell Arne Røvik's theories of organisational change, the changes in local democracy can be explained as being partly rational, partly symbolic and partly identity shaping political decisions..

This thesis examines the environmental benefits resulting from the choice of environmental certification scheme, with focus on energy. This was carried out by studying the measures that were implemented as a result of the certification of Sweco's three largest office buildings in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. The office property in Stockholm has been certified with the Swedish Environmental Building, Gothenburg with the British BREEAM and Malmö with the U.S system LEED.The results from the study indicate that an environmental certification can reduce the energy consumption by up to 59 percent and the water consumption by 20 to 66 percent. However; the interviews, literature study and simulations in MATLAB indicate that the size and scope of these environmental benefits depend on several identified factors: the type of building and its conditions, system selection, grade level, the choice of indicators, the ambition of those involved and when in time the certification process begins. The comparison between Environmental Building, LEED and BREEAM showed that Environmental Building for the office property in Stockholm gave the largest environmental benefit in terms of reduced energy consumption thanks to several large measures.

The history of environmental reporting began in the early 1990?s when some companies included the environmental issue in their annual report. The increased interest of ethical and sustainable investments and demands from different stakeholders conjure a change of the report design. To develop the environmental reports and create design guidance for sustainability reports an organisation called Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) was born. The GRI is environmental reporting taken to another level, a level that is according to sustainable development.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the institutional effectiveness of the environmental institutions Helcom and the Mediterranean regime, by using Haas, Levy and Keohane's "the three Cs"; governmental concern, contractual environment, political and administrative capacity. The method used is a comparative analysis.This study takes into consideration the specific structural and economic factors that are prevailing in each region where the environmental regime operates. This study also takes into account the influence of the European Union as a factor that affects the environmental progress.By focusing the study on the line of conduct concerning hazardous substances by respectively regime this study shows that the institutional effectiveness is fulfilled in neither Helcom nor the Mediterranean Regime, although Helcom has been more successful. The lack of state capacity is the most restraining factor for both developing countries and countries in the transition towards being developed, to achieve a good environmental status of the sea. This study also shows that the European Union sometimes has a greater impact on the environmental progress in states, rather than the environmental regime in countries that were/are aspiring members, thus showing the ineffectiveness of the regime..

In the light of the problems the media industry are struggling with, local news reporting is only one of the challenges the news organizations are facing. When local editors is being moved to the cities the tie with the local community is being severed.The aim of this study has been to analyze how the inhabitants of Vilhelmina municipality talks about their experiences of local journalism. With methodological inspiration from the Critical discourse analysis (CDA) this study examined the discourses of local journalism, social media, journalism's role and municipal policy. The theorectical framework consisted theories of media and democracy, convergence culture and discourse theory.The survey was conducted with four focus groups interviews. The focus groups were divided in different cathegories based on the participants experiences, ages and employment.