Rapid urbanisation is putting strains on both the landscape and the city dwellers and the pressure on planning for sustainable and equitable cities is crucial. As many cities in Sub-Saharan Africa are expanding, city planning has trouble keeping up to meet the needs of the growing amount of urban dwellers. Many cities have also been planned with the cars in focus and the needs and comfort of the pedestrians have been overlooked. The capacity of institutions is limited due to centralized government and bureaucracy, as well as corruption. Planning is erratically implemented and it is difficult to know what will happen.

Due to soft grounds in combination with seasonal variation in soil humidity, there is a lack of stands that are possible to cut during spring and autumn in some geographical regions. For Holmen Skog this sometimes means that a large proportion of the contracted private forest is cut during the winter when the ground is frozen. One consequence of this is that the proportion of winter stands in the stand bank of own forest increases while spring and autumn stands becomes a scarcity. This in combination with milder winters, especially when there is a long period of reduced bearing capacity in spring or autumn, means that the situation rapidly can become critical. The overall goal with this study was to generate basic data for decision support in the work to achieve a sustainable distribution between own forest and contracted private forest in the stand bank. The study took place at Holmen Skog, district of Umeå, during autumn 2007 and was based on interviews and an analysis of harvest planning and delivery data. The study showed that there is a problem with how the cutting is distributed between own and contracted private forest during the year and that it foremost is the proportion of winter thinning of own forest that has increased in the stand bank.

In the middle of Australia there is a city called Alice Springs. The city has one of the highest amounts of daily sunshine hours and sun irradiation in the world. The Australian Government runs a project called Solar Cities, and Alice Springs is one of the participators. The main part of the goal with the Solar Cities project is to increase the amount of electricity generated by solar power and by doing that lower the impact on the environment. This thesis examines the possibilities for construction of a large scale solar power plant in Alice Springs. This is done to determine the potential of creating a more sustainable energy system in the city.

The report addresses four main tasks, situation analysis of the company's total costs and transportation volume, cost analysis associated with the adjustment of the filling ratio, transport costs for the expansion and new expenses on a combination of expansion with new adjusted filling ratio.  Increasing transport costs for the company was the main reason for the request of the current situation analysis. A survey of the total cost with the actual volumes and transport provider pricing is the basis of the analysis that extends from May 2006 to October 2008. The results show an increase in costs, both overall expense and per cubic meter of transported goods. Volume spreads, trends, and seasonal variations are according to our and the company?s expectations.

Cycle time has a direct influence on number of returnable crates needed and therefore a crucial parameter for cost structure and pricing of the user fec in the pool system.For providing the growing market, number of crates has to increase as well as the utilization of existing crates. To accomplish this aim, cycle time for the whole supply chain has to be fully unravelled and understand.The purpose is to map cycle time and stock movements, to see how, where and when crates are being used in the supply chain. The goal is to make a method of cycle time calculation, together with suggestions of improving the pool system and decrease cycle time.The study has been a combination of qualitative and quantitative research and comprises the three biggest wholesalers in Sweden; ICA, Coop and Axfood. Furthermore have 65 grocery shops, connected to the wholesalers, been investigated and mapped.The study has come to a conclusion that cycle time for an average returnable crate is 19 days. The full-size and half-size crates have a bit longer cycle time, 21-22 days, while Dual Height-crates and shallow haif-size crates have 17-18 days.

The research in this paper aims to producing a home version machine thatcan dry and make biological waste into compact pellets. This product ismade primarily for those who want to improve the environment and reducethe energy consuming process of separating the biological leftovers fromother waste in the large processing plants and save money due to reducedpickups of waste. Since there is no commercially available product thatdoes what we want to achieve we had to start from the beginning with boththe design and the mechanical aspects. The result is a machine, that fits inour homes, and in an easy and inexpensive way reduces the amount ofbiological waste that needs to be collected by the public wastetransportation system. This is done without reducing any of the energy inthe waste and it can still be used to compost or by large-scale plants that usethe waste to make electricity.

Corporate Social Responsiblity is today a well known concept in the business world. The concept contains responsibility and sustainability for those who chose to work with Corporate Social Responsibility and the three responsibility areas within the concept. Responsibility and sustainability is of importance, no matter what core business a corporation has. The responsibility goes both out from the corporation, to take care of the surrounding society and the environment. The responsibility also concerns the corporation interal, aiming for a sustainable work enivornment and good working conditions.

This study investigates and describes the phenomenon of ?technical tourism?, in the case ofwind power plants in Sweden. The main purpose of the study is a greater understanding ofa field which to date has remained largely uncharted.Technical tourism is a type of visits to a production site, where the technical aspect ofthe production is the main focal point for the visitor. The definition of technical tourism isbased on concepts within ?Industrial tourism?.

Energy is an important issue in the current world which significantly affects sustainability and development. Energy generation and use are major sources of CO2 emissions which is one of the most important driving factors in global climate changes. The amount of energy used in house hold section can lead to estimation of the amount of CO2 emitted within this section which subsequently would be a ground to better management and maintaining a sustainable society. This study which is a bachelor?s project in sustainable energy, deals with estimation of CO2 emission from different types of residential houses in Sweden. An extensive literature review on energy use in Sweden by different residential sectors has been conducted.

The non-governmental organization Gram Vikas primary concern is to establish clean water in remote areas inhabited by often aggrieved tribals and low caste communities. Gram Vikas? slogan is Water for dignity. It refers to that everybody, regardless whereupon the social ladder you are, are entitled to the most fundamental elements for a dignified life. The purpose of this essay is to highlight the factors that are important for a shift to a more equal and sustainable living.

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.

The visions of the United Nations concerning sustainable development and conservation of biodiversity can only be realized if the human population succeeds in creating coexistence between human and wildlife. Landscape architects are able to influence on how landscapes are to be maintained and developed. The negative impact of infrastructure on wildlife has become a critical problem in Sweden and other parts of Europe. Wildlife crossings has been developed as a solution for the problems of road barriers in the landscape. The crossings are made to give animals a better opportunity to cross roads.

Cambodia, in Southeast Asia, has tropical monsoonal climate with distinct dry and rain seasons. Many people are poor and live in rural areas. Farmers mainly culture rice, and raise pigs, cattle and poultry as well. During two months, a minor field study was performed in Cambodia. The main purpose was to evaluate the impact of contributions done by projects that started in 2005 and were managed by the local organization CelAgrid.

Responsible production is a subject of increasing importance for companies toadopt and communicate to their environment and many companies choose to implementenvironmental ? and ethic considerations into their brand strategy. There is, however, adividing line between companies according to what extent they choose to implementresponsible production into their brand strategy and to which extent they choose tocommunicate it to their stakeholders and surroundings. It is the hypothesis about a dividingline that is the foundation for this essay and something we believed could be interesting forfurther analysis.The purpose of our essay is to find out how the brand strategy of a company is affected by theresponsible production and in what extent they communicate it to their environment. Byanswering those questions we hope to find out why some companies communicateresponsible production more actively than others.We have conducted in-depth interviews with the Swedish clothing companies; MariaWesterlind, Zion and Dem Collective and we have through our analysis reached interestingconclusions.

This thesis discusses the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility, which means that companies are taking a voluntary accountability towards the society with a view to improve it. Today's stakeholders and people in general have higher demands and expectations on businesses and its products or services than before. This is driving more and more companies to consider questions like voluntary responsibility so that they can maintain public confidence. Confidence towards the banking sector is particularly important to avoid financial crises. Our study focuses on leadership impact on CSR.