The construction and use of buildings in the EU accounts for half of the EU?s extracted materials and energy consumptions, and a third of greenhouse gas emissions. In the past decade, the construction sector has responded to such concerns by focusing on post production energy efficiency. However, new findings indicate that upstream construction processes influence emissions significantly ? necessitating a shift in focus to include material choices and building processes.

This master thesis is made in co-operation with the Department of Forest Management and Products at the Swedish University of Agriculture in Uppsala and the Forestry Association in Stockholm. The purpose of the Master thesis was to describe how pre-schools in Sweden use forests and green areas, and to understand how different factors can affect the use of the nature. The purpose of the interviews was to create a picture of attitudes and routines of the pre-schools, in the matter of visiting the nature. The thesis is built on interviews where fifteen pre-schools in five large cities around Sweden participated. Among these pre-schools, five of them worked with special focus on nature, while the other ten did not have any particular focus connected to their activity.

The purpose of my independent work was to develop and test a task-specific assessment matrix to the students writing logs that occurs in connection with their APL (workplace-based learning). The matrix is based on upper secondary school subject plan House building from The Swedish National Agency for Education and the four courses House building process, House building 1, House building 2 and House building 3 - conversion. Due to the matrix structure, I used the example matrix of Malmö University. The task-specific assessment must both serve as a guide for students in the implementation of the log writing, and in the evaluation of the assessment work. Both students and teachers then get a common assessment tool for evaluation.

The purpose with this research is to examine how the green marketing in retail trade can be developed in order to promote the eco-labeled products closer to the consumer.The method for the survey includes interviews with managers of a few retailers and their customers in the industrial sector. The purpose with the interviews was to produce the retailer and the customer?s perspective of products with eco-label on.The research is limited to the region of Västra Götaland.The results from this research indicate that there is a lack of communication between the retailer and the consumer. The consumers don?t think that the product is available.

This study examines the use of building modeling and energy simulations in the design process  of  a  building.  The  take-off  point  is  the  notion  of  energy  simulations  being needed early and throughout the building design process, and that the lack of energy simulations may be explained by the fact that they are time consuming and therefore often too expensive. A greater interoperability between software tools used by relevant disciplines,  such  as  the  architect  and  the  energy  specialist,  would  create  smoother workflows, which would reduce this cost and open up for more frequent and iterative energy  simulation  processes.  The  study  is  an  assessment  of  the  modeling  tool  Revit and  the  simulation  tool  Virtual  Environment  and  whether  they  can  create  smoother workflows, and make leeway for a more frequent use of energy simulations throughout the  design  process.  It  also  investigates  the  limitations  of  what  can  be  examined  by simulations in Virtual Environment. This will hopefully help clarify the future role of energy  simulations  in  design  processes.  The  method  is  a  trial  by  error  approach  of testing the two software tools by building and simulating a model. The results of these tests  show  that  the  workflow  is  not  optimal  (and  therefore  time  consuming)  for frequent  and  iterative simulations  throughout the  design  process,  but  it  also  reveals some  great  possibilities  of  what  can  be  performed  with  these  two  powerful  tools  at hand.  Further  development  with  regards  on  platform  independency  of  the  building information  model,  including  seamless  exporting  and  importing,  seems  necessary  to strengthen the future role of energy simulations..

This bachelor?s thesis studies Carl Str?mbergs ?ppeltr?dg?rd, a private garden consisting of a large number of apple trees and varieties. The garden is located outside ?rebro, in N?rke, and is owned by a unit owner association whose goal is to preserve and determine the varieties. Through interviews, articles, site visits and documents from Carl Str?mberg, the purpose have been to get an understanding of who Carl Str?mberg was, how he collected the apple varieties and how that process was affected by the climate amongst apple growing and pomology during that time.

A group of scientist, called the council of democracy in Sweden made a predictionabout members of political parties, in 2013 members should not exist. In this essaythat statement going to be questioned. It shows that most of the political parties losesmembers in Sweden. The only differences from year 2000 and now is that in 14 yearsthe parties has lost 65000 members, between 1991-1999 it was about 220000members. Something has changed.

The European Council agreed in 2008 on a climate and energy package to combat global warming. This package is valid for each EU member country and means that greenhouse gas emissions must fall by at least 20% and the EU's energy use to 20%, consisting of Renewable Energy in 2020. The Swedish Government has set stringent climate and energy with the intention to set an example for the rest of Europe. For example, renewable energy sources account for at least 50% of energy use and our climate emissions to fall by 40% by 2020. A combination of these goals and a steadily rising oil price has led to an increased demand for wood fuel in the form of such branches and tops.

The purpose of this study is to determine if and how municipal consultative entities through influence may affect the legitimacy of the Swedish democratic model. The study aims to do this through analysing the opportunities for influence present with the Youth Council and the Council of the Retired in Karlstads municipality, to determine how the councils may affect political participation and the role of elected representatives. To do so, the study asks the following primary research question:"What requisites for influence are present for participants of municipal consultative entities, as found for the representatives of the youth and the retired within the framework of their participation in the Youth Council and the Council of the Retired in Karlstads municipality?"The study answers this research question by dividing it into one question of policy and one question of democratic perspective, and investigating these matters through nine snowballing interviews with the decision makers, organisational actors and participants of the councils. The information from the interviews is then analysed per council through a framework of democracy theory, policy process theory and organisation theory.

In the thesis we have shown that it is possible with current technology, to buildneighborhoods that are largely self-sufficient. We have obtained some information aboutongoing work in the field of energy efficient buildings and active house which we have usedto develop a model. The feasibility study for Ranagård we have e.g been forced tofollow laws on groundwater covered, resulting in the construction of basements for singlefamilyhome is not possible. The model that we have built up overtime has been the central part of the work. The model illustrates very well what an activehouse neighborhood means and potential of such an area.

Background: The standard of living should be the same for everyone, whether the apartment is placed in an old or new building. The residential properties that were built from 1965 until 1974 is now beginning to become old and in need of restoration. The financial crisis during the nineties contributed to the lack of maintenance on the buildings in Sweden. As the public buildings gets older more and more defects occurs. The coordination and maintenance will therefore have a more significant role in the housing company ?s work.The increasing interest about how old a building can be, attract much attention.

This major project in Building Engineering has its focus on inquiring into what methods has been used in the planning process of the residential buildingLjusbojen 1. This project has been conducted in cooperation with Kadesjös Ingenjörsbyrå AB, an engineering contractor firm which also acts as the property developer. Initially several different general methods for planning residential buildings have been presented. After the methods from the process of building Ljusbojen 1 has been analyzed compared to the general methods presented in part 1. This shows what the determining factors are during the planning process; factors such as cost, quality, time management, know-how and environmental issues.

In health care today at Uppsala County Council the daily work involves spending time at the computer. IT-systems were implemented to support and aid the care givers in their work. Around these systems there is a support organization to support the users in using the system. The aim of this thesis is to investigate this organization in terms of how well it works and how successful it is in helping the users. This has been done by investigating the flow of information trough the organization and by focusing at the role of IT-coordinators with responsibility for support, process development, education and statistics.

This master thesis aims to describe and examine Haninge cultural centre, inaugurated in 2002. We study the centre from an organization theory point of view, with focus on the buildings physical appearance. The question we want to answer is to what extent, and if, Haninge cultural centre fulfills the underlying vision, formulated by the municipality of Haninge. Is the centre the symbol of a new era of Haninge and a vivid democracy as it was meant to be? Is there a congruency between the image the building creates and the vision that was formulated by the municipality? We also seek out to see how the cultural centre relates to an older tradition of cultural centres.

Mitt arbete innefattar en "Urban building" med bostadsrätter och kontor där utgångspunkten har varit cykeln då jag ansett den vara det mest stadsmässiga elementet. Placeringen för byggnaden är Hornsbruksgatan på Södermalm där det med projektet blir till 130 nya bostäder och 1200 kvm kontor som är väl anpassade för cykling såväl som cyklister..