During the years 1950-75 was the construction of building apartments in high speed. A rapidly growing reconstruction requirement is the consequence of the rapid construction speed in these years. The technical lifetime of the different parts of the buildings is about to end and the needs for reconstruction is huge. One of Sweden's national environmental objectives is to reduce the urge of energy in buildings. This calls for radical measures to implement energy efficiency of existing assistance particularly in the assistance that is now facing reconstruction.

The purpose of this master thesis is to find out if library activities in civil society may be seen as a complement to public activities. The incitement lies in a discussion in the research activities of social sciences and among politicians, where the opinion is that civil society may function as a complement to governmental policy. The NGO-library Föreningen Miljöbiblioteket i Lund and the municipality of Malmö stad where chosen as units for examination. The common feature of the two units is the global task introduced by the UN, to create a sustainable development. The material used is exclusively concerning domestic information activities.

Palm oil has been used in processed food commodities since the 19th century. An increasing demand for regulating and ensuring a more sustainable palm oil production has resulted in various initiatives. However, these initiatives have received critique due to lack of compliance and insufficient revisions of palm oil plantations. The initiatives for creating an ethical, social and environmentally sustainable production are not sufficient for the Swedish industrial users of palm oil. As a result, stakeholders such as Swedish food processing companies, commit to ethical sourcing codes of conduct that go beyond the international palm oil initiatives.

Skärgårdsstiftelsen, which is responsible for several of the archipelago islands in Stockholm, has chosen to explore the possibilities for more sustainable heating systems in buildings on the islands in collaboration with KTH. A reduction of energy use and improving the efficiency of existing heating systems are included as part of the environmental work. This report studies the island of Grinda, which is located outside the area of Vaxholm in Stockholm. The study area consists of a guesthouse consisting of a restaurant as well as conference facilities and four neighboring cottages used for overnighting. The cottages now run solely on direct electricity, both for heating and hot water.

To build high-rise buildings made of timber has for long been limited by national laws, due to the lack of knowledge in engineering solutions. Frame structures made of wood has for a long time been associated with major fire hazards and consequently lower safety and this connection is still being made today. The increased environmental awareness in recent years has contributed to the exploitation of indigenous building materials, including wood from our own Swedish forests and has become increasingly common. Increased knowledge about how structures behave in fire and how they can be protected in order to achieve safe timber structures has resulted in a growing interest in these structures in the construction industry. Research in the area is constantly updated and new laws allow any number of storeys in wooden buildings in Sweden as long as the performance requirements are fulfilled.The main part of this work has involved calculations of the fire resistance and load bearing capacity of floor and wall constructions.

The Swedish building and property management sector are responsible for about 30 % of the total energy use. In order to take environmental consideration, different environmental assessment tools and standards are used. Miljo?byggnad, Svanen, FEBY12 and PHI are some of these. There has been increased interest to certify buildings and therefore it is of interest to evaluate the assessment of the energy field to see if relevant energy aspects are assessed.

This study is based on a case study of Pilotprojekt Drevfjällen, a project whose ambition is tofind ways to secure nature conservation in a local context. This is promoted at governmentlevel, which says that a local connection is needed to achieve sustainable regionaldevelopment. The study, based on a theoretical background of the concept of governance,intends to evaluate whether Pilotprojekt Drevfjällen can contribute to a sustainable regionaldevelopment.This study is based on meeting documentations, semi-structured interviews with variousstakeholders in the project, field studies and participant observation at an informativemeeting. The region of interest, north Dalarna, was visited twice to obtain the specificconditions that Pilotprojekt Drevfjällen have. The interviews revealed positive attitude to theincreased dialogue and cooperation that Pilotprojekt Drevfjällen has meant for theparticipants.

The aim of my thesis is to obtain knowledge of textile wastewater and textile sludge from an environmental perspective, which can be used as a basis for the  ?Sweden Textile Water Initiative? guidelines for a sustainable sludge management. In my study I have mainly focused on textile dyes, salts and metals and their routes during wastewater treatment.This paper is partly a literature review, which I began by identifying the pollutants discharged from each textile process. Then I studied wastewater and sludge quality, environmental aspects, possible treatment and recycling methods. I have also tried to find existing type of guidelines in order to make comparisons.

In this essay we have been trying to get an understanding of what Swedish charter tourists cares for when they are going on vacation. The Tourism industry is a major field with a lot of winners, but it also comes with consequences. The purpose with this essay is to get an understanding of how aware the Swedish charter tourists is of these consequences. We would also like to get a perception of how the tourists themselves believe that their presence effects the locals at the destinations they are visiting (if they assume that they are). There are several different types of consequences that can appear in the context of tourism, but we have decided to focus on one kind.

Today's unsustainable resource use is influenced by many factors. One key factor isproduction methods and patterns. Trough change of production patterns enterprises can bepart of the solution to a more sustainable society. This case study has analyzed environmentalperformance of the printer company Edita Västra Aros Ltd (EVA), who has gained awards forits environmental work, and what driving forces they have had during this work. The survey isbased on a qualitative method and the collected data consists of documents and staffinterviews, which have been analyzed with content analysis.

There seems to be a consensus in the world that the climate is changing, bringing unpredictable and severe consequences for both humans and nature. The feld of social work is known for helping misfortunate individuals and groups, and is said to deal with people in their environments. Yet there seems to be a lack of giving these environments meaning as also something natural. This thesis has the purpose of exploring the connection between social work and the physical environment made by research literature, using the methodology of literature review. The questions asked is in which ways the physical environment can be connected to human welfare; if so, what implications are there for the feld of social work, and fnally how can the discussion be understood using a typology over environmental sustainability presented by Andrew Dobson.

Over the past one hundred years, there has been an increasing globalization and industrialization of the food systems. As a result, the distance between the production and the consumption of food has increased, both in time and space and in the minds of people. There is also an increasing concern for the environmental effects of industrial farming and the long distance transportation of food. Sustainable agriculture and efforts to build more sustainable food systems has emerged in opposition to the global food market. The definitions of sustainability usually include environmental, social and economical aspects. To build more localized food systems is seen as one way towards increased sustainability.

Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to get a comprehensive understanding for the thoughts behind Visby?s sustainable tourism planning. Focus will lie on how far Visby has come in their planning and implementing towards a sustainable tourism development. Methods: This study is preceded from a hermeneutical and constructive perspective. The methods used are induction and qualitative research in the form of deep interviews with four key figures working within Gotland?s municipality and tourism industry.

This study investigates a farm in Dalarna which includes 16 ha of farmland and 1, 7 ha of pasture. The purpose is to find out if it is possible to start an animal production in Dalarna. The study is set only to compare spring lamb production with nurse cow production. There are two buildings on the farm that can be used for this purpose. One is an old cowshed, and the other is an unused silo for silage with a roof on top. Both of the buildings are compared to every alternative in the calculations.

Background: Climate changes are a growing concern all over the world today. In June year 2006 the European Union accepted a new strategy for the Unions work against a sustainable development. The concept of taking consideration to all the aspects of an organisations/a company's activity is something that have been in focus during later years. Social and ethical aspects are in focus and questions regarding these aspects are more commonly included in the companies yearly reporting. A sustainability report is characterised by that it takes into account not only environmental aspects, like ordinary environmental reports, but also social and ethical aspects of a company's activity with it's surroundings.