A couple of hundred years ago half of the earth?s surface was covered by forest. Today, only half remains and every year an area the size of Nepal is disappearing. Deforestation, together with the burning of fossil fuels, is also one of the reasons for the increasing greenhouse effect. Another relatively unknown problem for the world?s forests is the trade with illegally harvested timber.

?A culture center should be visually welcoming as well as attract a diverse range of visitors with different backgrounds.? This was the client?s request for a new cultural center in Nairobi. The location is in the heart of Nairobi?s industrial area, near several existing buildings that are already in use by the culture organization known as Go Down. I have chosen to keep most of the existing buildings and to use my new building as a complement for the desired program.

This paper describes a factor analysis applied at the data of the European Union structural indicators. These are the official indicators for wealth and economic development in the European Union with main use to evaluate the outcomes of the year 2000 Lisbon goals for making the European Union the world?s strongest economy by 2010. The purpose of the data is to serve for comparing and ?learning by doing?-policies, but have, due to size and format, so far been hard to use for a good compare between member countries.

The industrial sector accounts for a large share of greenhouse gas emissions. To reduce its negative impact on the environment is crucial in the quest for a sustainable future. In discussions of the industrial sector's impact on the environment guidelines have been highlighted as a tool to assist the industries in their efforts to change the relationship between the consumption of energy and production. This by improving energy efficiency and a shift to the best available technology. During the past 30 years the steel industry has reduced its energy consumption per ton of steel produced by 50 percent.

Organic animal husbandry has received a lot of criticism lately. The aim of this literature review was to examine if the rules and principles of organic pig farming give better or worse welfare in comparison to the conventional systems in Sweden. Health, physiology and behaviour have been used as indicators of welfare in this study. This is due to the importance of using more than one indicator in welfare assessments. Studies have shown that organic pigs have more remarks on joints when slaughtered, but these remarks can be reduced by vaccination against erysipelas.

SAMMANDRAGLerums kommun har en vision om att bli Sveriges ledande miljökommun till år 2025 eller tidigare. En stor del av arbetet, som kännetecknas av hållbarhet, kreativitet och inflytande, sker i Gråbo. Det är idag en ort som känns bortglömd och är lätt att passera utan vetskap om dess placering. Samhället har såväl synliga baksidor som är i behov av förbättring och förnyelse, som outnyttjade tillgångar som bör lyftas fram.Syftet med föreliggande arbete är att ta fram förslag på hur Gråbo kan förbättras både med avseende på hållbar samhällsutveckling samt estetiska och funktionsmässiga förbättringar av samhället.Arbetet påbörjades med en faktainsamling, som sedan låg till grund för en inventering på plats i Gråbo. Detta sammanställdes till en analys där tillgångar och problem presenterades med hjälp av Adobe Illustrator till flera kartor.

In some coastal areas in Sweden water shortage sometimes appears because the withdrawal of groundwater is greater than the groundwater recharge. It creates a situation where the available groundwater is insufficient to support residents and businesses with drinking water. The high withdrawal of groundwater also creates a risk for saltwater intrusion to drinking water wells. The problem most commonly occurs during the summer when the groundwater recharge is low, but the population is high, due to tourism and summer residents.The purpose of this study was to investigate how local water supply in areas affected by water shortage can be solved as sustainable as possible. The work was divided into three parts where the first part comprised of a literature review on water systems in which four different options were investigated: artificial groundwater recharge, rainwater harvesting, desalination and water reuse.

This thesis is the result of the class Examensarbete, 15 credits of the mechanical engineering program at Halmstad University. The class represents the final part of the program with the aim to attain a Bachelor of Science. It´s a project made during the spring 2014 in collaboration with Alutrade AB and ScanBox Thermo Products AB.The assignment is to develop a new transportation trolley for ScanBox. The aim is to complement their range with a product that opens up to new markets. That set new demands for materials and also manufacturing- and assembly methods.

The guest harbor on Utö, Utö Gästhamn, is currently using electricity for heating all of the water used in the showers and taps. Because of the large amount of visitors, especially during the summer months, the hot water usage gets very high and that is also the case for the electrical bills. During the year of 2011 the cost of electricity for Utö Gästhamn reached a total of 257 500 kr. Out of these 257 500 kr approximately 142 000 kr, 55 % of the total cost, were because of the water heating.The report is the result of a cooperation with Skärgårdsstiftelsen, the Green Islands-project and Utö Gästhamn where the mutual goal is to dimension a solar energy system, to promote the sustainable development.Initially the different techniques for the solar energy system are researched. The techniques are plane solar collectors, evacuated tube collectors, pool collectors and photovoltaic cells.

The purpose of this paper is to give examples of different ways of economic planning and calculation within agriculcture. My aim is to use a couple of them as an explanation of a case from reality. My choice went to budgetsimulation and balanced scorecard since those are best suited in this specific case. In the information retrieval I present different instruments of economic planning like theory of cost, budget and productcalculation. The budgetsimulation describes how to use the different methods in a long term economic planning. The balanced scorecard is also a model of longand short-term planning but besides the economy planning it?s also a reminder of your personal goals. In the model I have used a dairyfarm as a case.

This master thesis is about one of the first female in the Swedish Parliament, Elisabeth Tamm (1880?1958), and her political articles in the magazine Tidevarvet. The aim of this study is to find similarities with Tamm?s political thoughts with the Ecofeministic theory. Due to women?s right to vote 1919 women citizenship was in a political debate.

AbstractThe research project Liberation, supported by the European Commission under the Environment and Sustainable Development Programme (Fifth RTD Framework Programme) aimed at developing a decision support system for ecological risk assessment of contaminated sites has proposed a tiered system including the triad method. This method integrates contaminant chemistry and bioavailability analyses with observed ecotoxicological effects in soil and groundwater. In this study the triad method was used to perform a risk characterization of a former surface treatment and metal industry, now used for the student union buildings of the Mälardalen University in Eskilstuna, Sweden. On the site, high concentrations of copper, zinc and nickel have been detected in the soil in a preliminary investigation of contaminant levels with XRF. For performing the risk assessment of the site according to the triad method, contaminant bioavailability, soil metal concentrations and soil toxicity were determined and an ecological assessment was carried out on four selected soil samples (one reference soil and three samples with low (B), medium (C) and high (D) contaminant levels). Contaminant bioavailability was measured through leaching (ISO TC 190/S7) and biouptake tests (DGT).

The aim of this review is to assess the ethical implications of aquaculture, regarding fish welfare and environmental aspects. The aquaculture industry has grown substantially the last decades, both as a result of the over-fishing of wild fish populations, and because of the increasing consumer demand for fish meat. As the industry is growing, a significant amount of research on the subject is being conducted, monitoring the effects of aquaculture on the environment and on animal welfare. The areas of concern when it comes to animal welfare have here been divided into four different stages: breeding period; growth period; capturing and handling; and slaughter. Besides these stages, this report includes a chapter on the current evidence of fish sentience, since this issue is still being debated among biologists.

Milk yield levels in dairy cows are influenced by many factors such as nutrition, breed, health status, management and environment. This study was conducted among small scale farmers in Zambia, where the climate can be dry for up to six months per year and cause a lack of green pasture for livestock and on-farm produced feed. The purpose of this study was to identify management factors that can influence milk yield at small scale dairy farms in Zambia, and present advice that could improve productivity, without the need of expensive investments. The study included semi-structured questionnaires presented to the farmers (n=29) including questions about cattle management and milk production. Testing of somatic cell count (SCC) with DCC (DeLaval Cell Counter) from herd milk samples (n=56) and observation of housing and animal body condition on-farm was also made.

In recent years, the Swedish railway track system has been neglected in terms of capacity and maintenance. To adapt the existing system to current traffic load there is a great need for extensive improvement and maintenance. Shortcomings are especially occurring on older embankments running over soft subgrades. To select the most suitable method for reinforcement of the embankment, it is important to evaluate different solutions from a life cycle cost perspective. In long-term perspective, it is often shown that a method with low investment cost causes a higher maintenance cost and a shorter technical lifetime.