Title: Global Reporting Initiative - A comparative study on compliance with the initiative's guidelines between Ericsson and Vattenfall.Authors: Peter Leidhammar, Mattias ThorénSupervisor: Bo EnquistExaminer: Margareta BjurkloSeminar Date: 2009-01-14Background and problem formulation: The interest and the requirements that stakeholders have for companies sustainability issues are becoming increasingly important. Thus more companies are increasing their work on their sustainability reports. As there are no laws governing how these are to be designed, standards have been created by various organizations that companies voluntarily can follow. Now, after the Swedish government gave them the directive to follow the GRI's guidelines the Swedish public companies have started to follow this trend. The question then stand how much the private companies' sustainability reports differ from state companies and whether this can be traced to the differences in the companies' ownership and their stakeholders picture.Objective: The purpose of the paper is:· analyze how the GRI's guidelines are followed by the two organizations· highlight differences between them from a theoretical perspectiveLimitations: This paper is limited to two companies, one company owned by the government and one privately-owned company.

Energy and environmental demands regarding buildings have become an increasinglydiscussed topic, both in Sweden and in Europe as a whole. The general trend indicatesthat greater efforts are being put into the energy efficiency of the built environment.There are already numerous examples of houses with a low energy demand, and thenumber of low energy buildings is constantly growing.At the time being, the maximum level for energy demands for housing in Stockholm is110 kWh/m2year, but as soon as next year the limit will be changed to 90. The Swedishagency Energimyndigheten is currently conducting a project to interpret the EU Directiveon the so-called Nearly zero energy buildings, and the preliminary results indicate thatthe level of requirements for purchased energy will end up with about 55 kWh / m2year,which is in line withtoday?s recommendationsfound in FEBY's Kravspecifikation förPassivhus.Starting with a low-energy house in Henriksdalshamnen in Stockholm, we have analyzedvarious energy-efficiency measures and their influence on power and energy needs. Thefinancial aspects associated with the measures have been studied using a model of lifecycle costs.The measures were initially studied individually to give an idea of how much impact theyeach had.

Scania is constantly trying to improve their product development process, the PD-process.The company, along with others, is optimizing their development process in order to gainadvantage in terms of shorter lead times and larger market shares. For this to happen, a wellorganized process is required.The PD-process is divided into three different phases that are linked together by a hand-overprocedure. Scania Bus has experienced problems that stem from a lack of hand-over routines,and as a result the product development process has been slowed down. This has a number ofconsequences, one of them being the complication of new project initiations.The main purpose of this master thesis was to review the hand-over procedure. Within thestudy the project directive was also to be examined, and a recommendation of how the start ofa new project could be made easier was included.To begin with, a detailed literature study was conducted with the intention of obtaining thebasic theoretical knowledge needed for this study.

Offentlig upphandling är inte endast ett sätt att tillförskaffa sig varor, utan kan också användas som ett samhällspolitiskt instrument för att verka för sociala mål som ställts upp. Hur de varor och tjänster som upphandlas produceras inverkar på de arbetsrättsliga och sociala förhållandena i leverantörskedjan, och genom att ställa sociala krav vid en offentlig upphandling kan den upphandlande myndigheten förstärka förtroendet hos invånarna. Trots en omfattande EU-rättslig reglering på området är det idag dock osäkert vilka möjligheter den upphandlande myndigheten ges att ställa arbetsrättsliga krav på leverantören av upphandlingsföremålet. Syftet med uppsatsen är att utreda i vilken omfattning en upphandlande myndighet kan ställa arbetsrättsliga krav vid en offentlig upphandling, samt utreda om förslaget till nytt klassiskt upphandlingsdirektiv kommer innebära några förändringar för den upphandlande myndigheten vad gäller möjligheten att ställa arbetsrättsliga krav. Av uppsatsen framkommer att det inte finns någon klar gräns vilka arbetsrättsliga krav den upphandlande myndigheten får ställa på leverantören vid en offentlig upphandling. Den största möjligheten att ställa ett arbetsrättsligt krav torde föreligga om kravet ställs såsom ett tilldelningskriterium, då EU-domstolen har klargjort att sociala krav får ställas för att tillgodose behov hos personer samt att ett tilldelningskriterium inte behöver vara kopplat till upphandlingsföremålet, utan det kan vara kopplat till hur en vara eller tjänst produceras.

Banks carry a great responsibility when it comes to the financial systems in our society. Disturbance in the credit system affects both lender and borrower. All financial institutions must therefore carefully estimate their risk exposure. This assessment enables them to cover themselves from losses with appropriate capital buffers as main guardian. In order to prevent bank crises and also to maintain financial stability in general, new regulations concerning analysis and preventive actions were introduced on the 1st of February 2007.

In Sweden has the temporary agency work industry settled in an explosive way since the deregulation of the unemployment agency monopole in 1993. The demand of civil right for the employer that is rented out confronts the entire labour law regulation with new challenges.The purpose with this paper is an investigation of the principle of equal treatment in The Swedish temporary agency work act and also to create a deeper understanding of the effects of labour and employment relationship. An investigation of relevant collective agreements will be done to highlight the difficulties the principal of equal treatment is exposed to. Further on is there a will to gain understanding for the wage concept and what possible can be included in the wage concept in relation to the principal of equal treatment in The temporary agency work directive. By using the dogmatic method, an approach to descriptive identifying relevant sources of law and clarify the legal situation in the area.In the conclusions it will be determined that the principle of equal treatment in The Swedish temporary agency work act have different effects depending on if the temporary agency or if the client corporation is tied to an collective agreement alternative if a collective agreement is completely missing.

In the EU there are EC Directives that Member States of EU should follow. Sweden has undertaken to transpose EC Directives regarding the working environment to Swedish Provisions.  In 4 April 2006, the European Commission had some criticism against the Swedish implementation of the Construction Sites Directive. The Swedish Work Environment Authority has in response to this criticism reworked the Work Environment Act and related provision about building and civil engineering work. The changes came into force 1 January 2009.These changes have resulted in some working methods and even new responsibility subjects must be reviewed. The purpose of this exam project was to investigate if contractors and clients in the construction sector, had have time to update themselves on this front and adapt to these changes.

Swedens membership in the European Union have resulted in an internationalcharacterized labour market. The construction sector is the area who employs mostposted workers among the 7400 employees who monthly enters the market. It?s alsothe sector where a big part of the work-related deaths occurs. The purpose of this studyis therefore to contribute to a greater understanding of the regulation regarding postedworkers, their work environment and the consequences of it.

Ethnic discrimination is still a problem in the Swedish employment market. The Ombudsman against Ethnic Discrimination received 154 complaints relating to discrimination due to ethnicity in the working life in 2012. In addition, reported unemployment rates in Sweden differ markedly between native-born and foreign-born. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how protection against ethnic discrimination in recruitment looks like in Sweden and describe different methods an employer may use to prevent that ethnic discrimination occurs in recruitment situations. The first and second issue of the essay concern what protection there is in Sweden against ethnic discrimination in recruitment situations, based on international and national law. The traditional legal dogmatic method, which describes the valid law, is used in these sections.

I dagens samhälle finns det ett antal arbetstagare som har anställning på begränsad tid. Denna uppsats utreder regleringarna kring visstidsanställningar samt vilket förhållande som finns mellan visstidsanställningar och samhället. Fokus i detta arbete är att undersöka hur visstidsanställningar regleras och hur dessa inverkar på individer i Sverige. För att få full förståelse behandlar uppsatsen vidare EU:s syn på Sveriges reglering av visstidsanställda. Samhällets utveckling behandlas kort för att nå en djupare kännedom om behovet av visstidsanställningar i Sverige.

After the last European Union expansion the east European countries became members of the European Union. This meant that they would become apart of the Schengen agreement and that they would be able to travel, live and work anywhere in Europe. This came as a shock tothe Scandinavian trade unions that were worried that work migration would escalate, and that it would lead to social dumping, which would make the working conditions worse for the native workers. .The Swedish labour market is build up by the principal of negotiations. The evolution of the labour laws comes from the rules and regulations of collective agreements.The Lex Britannia principal was made to regulate the working conditions for guest workers in Sweden, by making it possible for trade unions to take industrial action against foreign companies to make them sign a Swedish collective agreement.Even though Swedish labour law includes an obligation to maintain industrial peace it is not valid for foreign companies.

Swedens membership in the European Union have resulted in an international characterized labour market. The construction sector is the area who employs most posted workers among the 7400 employees who monthly enters the market. It?s also the sector where a big part of the work-related deaths occurs. The purpose of this study is therefore to contribute to a greater understanding of the regulation regarding posted workers, their work environment and the consequences of it.

International trade in services has increased over the past 30 years as a result of progress in information and communication technology, increased focus on services from the manufacturing sector and the establishment of trade associations.The international market for healthcare services, also referred to as medical tourism, is growing more and more. Patients increasingly seeking treatment at other countries healthcare systems because of long queues within their own country or because it exists better prices for the same care abroad. However, this type of service exports occurs at a limited extent in Sweden.The purpose of this study is to highlight and analyze the conditions for Swedish service companies to export healthcare services. This, includes the challenges and opportunities that exist to expand the exports of these services.The approach for this study has been in the form of interviews with two market actors and written responses, from the same interview guide, with three market actors. These market participants are the so-called Care companies which export healthcare services in various counties, and the membership organization Swecare who work with export promotion activities for its members in the Swedish healthcare sector.

Stage-discharge equations for lakes without disharge measurementsSimon AnderssonIn 2015 all lakes, rivers, coastal water and groundwater should be of good ecological statusaccording to the water framework directive from the European Union. In the process ofimproving the quality of Swedish water bodies, knowledge of where problems occur isneeded in order to utilize the resources optimally. The ability of lakes to store water is animportant factor since it controls the flow of water through the country. A stage-dischargeequation is a mathematical relation between discharge from a lake and its water level. Bybetter understanding of stage-discharge equations for lakes, their storage capacity can bedescribed better in hydrological models.This master thesis aims to evaluate methods for determining stage-discharge equations forlakes where a variable amount of field measurements is available.

Lotsbroverket is the largest wastewater treatment plant on the Aland Islands and it isdesigned for handling wastewater from approximately 30 000 persons. In 2011,Lotsbroverket produced about 2800 m3 of dewatered sludge. The sewage sludge that isproduced is transported to a contractor where it is processed to eventually be used e.g.in the construction of green space. This study aims to investigate available applicationoptions in terms of the sewage sludge that is produced in Lotsbroverket. The main aimis to study the feasibility of using the produced sewage sludge as a fertilizer in theagriculture of the Aland Islands.The sludge already fulfills limit values for heavy metals in accordance with the Act"The Aland Government´s directive on the use of sewage sludge in agriculture." Inorder to clarify the sludge content of pharmaceutical and organic substances it isrequired that the substances are identified and a risk assessment is performed.