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.

Using the example of 55 former towns in Greater Poland, the author investigates the belief thattowns formerly deprived of town privileges are the most likely to be qualified as future formalurban entities. This paper approaches the subject of urban deprivation and restitution with amultiaspectual study of the concept of urbanity. Since a preponderance of Polish degraded townspossess a prominent urban physical structure, the study focuses mainly on urban morphology as acontributing factor to urbanity. Other approaches include the central place theory, demographicconditions and the role of urban perception. Taking into account Poland?s shifting geopoliticalhistory the study also seeks to identify and explain spatial patterns of varying degrees of urbanityamong the studied towns.

Bakgrund: Med eskalerande miljöhot är det självklart att alla ska bidra till ett värnande om miljön och en hållbar utveckling.Företag kan, frivilligt, utföra hållbarhetsredovisningar för attlegitimera sig inför sina intressenter. Ett bestyrkande frånoberoende part gör hållbarhetsredovisningen, som liggerutanför traditionell redovisning, mer trovärdig.Syfte: Syftet med fallstudien är att, utifrån en grundmodell och enutvidgad modell inom hållbar utveckling granska tre företags hållbarhetsredovisningar, för att i analys och slutsats urskilja om hållbar utveckling kan uppnås genom hållbarhetsredovisningar.Metod: FallstudieResultat: Med lagar som grund i all redovisning, tillsammans mednormgivande riktlinjer som exempelvis GRI, toppat med företagens vilja att konkurrera och marknadsföra sig via redovisning av miljö- och socialt ansvar, kan resultatet bli att en uppstramning av lagen i nuläget är onödig..

The right to the city has lately become the rallying cry for many urban social movements all over the world to challenge neoliberal planning, gentrification, the privatization of urban commons and growing spatial and social gaps in city and society. This senior essay studies urban social movements that in different ways advocate the idea of the right to the city. The term right to the city was coined in the late 1960s by French urban theorist Henri Lefebvre, who promoted the idea of the city as a common, a space belonging to everyone. The right to the city is not ?a return to traditional cities?, but ?a right to urban life? (1996:158).This study focuses on the city of Hamburg.

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.

Newly built urban environments are a prominent feature of contemporary Swedish cities, yet are often experienced as anonymous and difficult to feel belonging to. This study examined which physical and aesthetic characteristics of newly built urban environments in Gothenburg co-vary with experiences of placelessness, how these experiences vary between different types of urban environments, and how they relate to individuals' attachment to the city.The study was based on a quantitative survey of 98 respondents, distributed through Gothenburg-oriented groups on social media. Respondents assessed photographs of four newly built urban environments: Kvilleb?cken, Masthuggskajen, Fixfabriken and G?taverken using a placelessness index derived from six statements on a five-point Likert scale. The physical and aesthetic characteristics of each area were coded by the researcher along three dimensions: scale, level of detail, and compositional order.

Uppsatsen behandlar temat urbana tillväxtstrategier i svensk planering. Studien syftar till att undersöka hur översiktsplaner har påverkats av entrepreneurial city, platsmarknadsföring och kreativa klassen som alla är olika teorier om urban tillväxt. Undersökningen utgår ifrån fem kommuner med en översiktsplan från tidigt 90-tal och en aktuell plan antagen omkring 2010. Översiktsplanerna studeras utifrån de valda teorierna (entrepreneurial city, platsmarknadsföring och kreativa klassen) om urban tillväxt för att ge förståelse för hur strategierna i kommunernas översiktsplaner har påverkats av teorierna. Den genomförda undersökningen visar på en förändring över tid som pekar mot mer tillväxtorienterad planering..

The landscape is a great asset for Göteborg as a city and places in the landscape are much used by the public. This diploma work deals with the question of how nature in Göteborg can become more accessible and how a place in it can be supplemented with new landscape elements. It is a proposal for a new urban park at Björlanda peninsula in the western part of Hisingen, Göteborg, which today belongs to the Swedish Armed Forces and is a part of the Nature-2000 area "Nordre älvs estuarium". The reason for choosing this place is that it is the only area around the costal area in Göteborg that has not been built on and that it contains a very varied landscape. The proposal is presented as three different broschures, dated 10-20 years ahead: A map of a possible system of urban parks including a detail of such a park, Västra Hisingen (the western parts of Hisingen) The idea with a system of urban parks is to make the landscape generally more accessible and maybe open it for people that do not use it today. A broschure of the central area Välkommen, with my design proposal for an urban park at Björlanda peninsula The design aims to utilize the landscape elements water, mountains, vegetation and sky and to intensify the experience of them. A flora for Välkommen that shows a selection of plants for the design proposal.

How can we plan so that smallscale industry and businesses can become an integrated part of the city? The densifying process in search of new housing areas that is going on in most swedish cities threatens to undermine the diversity and complex make up of central parts of many cities. To sustain industrial activities in central locations is critical to this diversity. This thesis discusses how to reach a sustainable city planning with Bellevue, a small industry and business area in central Gothenburg, as an example..

This paper is part of the research programme ViSuCity, a programme with the goal of creating more sustainable urban planning through the development of better visual tools, which ultimately means better communication between various parties of public planning. The paper concerns the implementation of MCE into a 3D program for visualization. Multi criteria evaluation (MCE) is a technique that has been developed during the last 20 years. It merges GIS with AHP, forming a decision making tool for localization of, for example, new buildings.The result is an automated tool that enables advanced analysis of geographic areas.The tool has a very high potential due to the completely automated MCE and it is adapted for people without a technical background, let alone formal training in MCE. It provides great opportunities to test different scenarios, something that should be an important advantage.

Sustainability is a term that is constantly gaining focus in our society and we are becoming more and more aware of the need to take the next generation into consideration when making decisions. The sustainable activity within the core business is growing and is also connected to profitability in ways that have not been seen before. However, the activities that are not included in the core business have not yet reached this long-term perspective. These non-core businesses within an organization goes under the term Facilities Management (FM).This paper focuses onReal Estate businesses, FM-suppliers and the relation between them.The purpose is to investigate current knowledge regarding outsourced FM-services and the real estate organisation?s use of these services.

Urban trees contribute significantly to our society. By providing ecosystem services and a habitat that other urban species and ecosystems depend on, both biodiversity and the people in the city benefit. Some characteristics that the trees possess include functioning as biological filters for the atmosphere and water, as well as positively impacting people's mental health. However, urban trees are challenged by stressors such as pollution and a drier environment, making them particularly sensitive to climate change. The goal of this study was to estimate the expected magnitude of climate change in Gothenburg and compare it with the current urban species' natural climate boundaries to understand the extent of the climate threat and which species appear to be most at risk.

AbstractTitle: ?A more humane and equal world? A consumers view on corporate social responsibility and the internet based apparel commerce.Author: Fanny Bergström & Isabelle BlancMentor: Emma SvenssonPurpose: The purpose of this thesis was to examine the attitudes and experiences of consumers in relation to Internet based commerce and corporate social responsibility. The study is based on the following questions; 1. How do costumers perceive Internet based companies and their work with CSR-questions? 2.

The purpose of this study is to examine how risk is perceived by the urban architect's in the region Dalarna, as well as how this is reflected in their everyday work with risk and decision- making according to urban planning. The ambition is also to show how their risk awareness could be improved. The study is written in cooperation with Länsstyrelsen Dalarna as a part of their regional long-term goal to improve the region's proactive risk' and crisis management. The study is based upon 12 semi-structured interviews with local urban architects conducted during the summer and autumn 2007. The result shows that some architects are motivated for working with risk and think that risk awareness should be integrated in their everyday work, while others are not motivated and think that risk is more of a passing trend.

The Swedish stock-market gives investors an opportunity to benefit from the global growth while financing companies invests and contributes to a socio-economic development. Parallel to the ownership of the funds also follows a responsibility as companies in the funds affect society and the environment. The growth of savings in funds, combined with an increased focus on sustainability has developed SRI (socially responsible investment). Therefore it is interesting to examine whether responsibility is an exception, which only concerns SRI-funds or a general principle, which includes the whole Swedish stock-market.The results of the survey makes it clear that all the Swedish major banks actively works to integrate sustainability within the respective bank's business to achieve a more sustainable financial system. Thus concludes the investigation that responsible investments are a general principle on the Swedish mutual stock-market.How responsibility is integrated in fund management differ between the banks.