The aim of this thesis is to form a theory of the green consumer power and to distinguish whether this phenomenon could indicate a movement toward the ecological citizenship. To do so, scientific theories regarding the responsibility of companies have been used, as well as the public choice theory, to link individuals as citizens to individuals as consumers. The motives of corporate environmental responsibility, along with consumers ability to bring pressure in different dimensions, are later drawn on as indicators applied to empirical information. The largest producer of ecological products in Sweden, Arla Foods, is employed as case study to explore if the green consumer power can and does exist. The ecological citizenship uses the ecological footprint, to define in what ways we can minimize our part of environmental degradation.The study seems to strengthen the theory, consumers do have a power to make companies go green and they tend to use it increasingly.

The purpose of these theses is to show the financial economical situation during the change from conventional dairy production to Ecological production. The thesis is accomplished by collecting information from literature and interviews where needed. The target group of these theses is dairy producers who will transform their production from conventional dairy production to certified ecological dairy production. The theses emphasise on the economic situation during the adjustment years. For this I have studied a presently producing dairy farm.

This study includes a life cycle assessment, LCA, on an ecological produced cotton shirt for the company Reflective Circle, which designs ethical and ecological clothes.Initially were cotton farming and textile production studied to gather basic knowledge about the processes. Since this shirt is being ecological produced in the whole production chain, we studied what an Ecological production means, but also how a conventional production works. When this was done we could start to discuss the differences and similarities between the production of the shirt and general conventional production.When the LCA was first initiated, the main focus was on the green house gas emissions from the manure at the cultivation. Thereafter the process steps such as picking, ginning, carding, spinning, weaving and sewing were being studied. The picking is done by hand, but the rest of the processes are handed by machines which consumes energy.

Sustainable beef and milk consumption. The consumption of beef and dairy products in Sweden is high. A lot of greenhouse gases are emitted from the production of these products. The production of beef in Sweden has decreased but the import has increased. The number of dairy cows has decreased while beef-production with suckler-cows has increased in Sweden.

In Sweden in January 2005, there is only one producer of organic broilers and none of organic turkeys. But there are, on the other hand, a few small-scale producers whose housing systems to some extent are similar to what is stipulated in the organic standards. The aims of this work are to investigate what housing systems are used by the Swedish small-scale producers of broilers and turkeys, what main challenges they are confronted with and if there is an interest and a possibility for a change-over to organic production. For the first part of this work a literature study was performed with the purpose of detecting the main health problems in conventional as well as smallscale production. A special focus was on coccidiosis and leg weakness as those were considered to be of particular importance. A study was made of Swedish small-scale poultry production units. In two groups of broilers from the same producer and in three flocks of turkeys the level of Eimeria oocysts in faeces and litter was investigated.

ISO14001:2004 : A Human Ecological Tool?This is a study by means of litterature analysis and personal experience to find out wheather you could call ISO14001:2004 a Human Ecological tool. The ISO14001 is an environmental management system. I'm approaching the issue from a users' perspective and putting my experience of implementing the ISO 9001 at my work to good use. Though my personal experience is limited to the implementation of the ISO 9001, it is quite relevant to the task since the update of 2004 the ISO14001:2004 is brought closer to the ISO 9001 standard in many ways.

Effects of climate change, urbanization and global homogenization are resulted in the degradation of land and losses of natural habitats. Ecological design integrates nature into urban environment by respecting natural ecological principles and processes and creating resilient urban biotopes which also can be used by local urban communities. The aim of the thesis is to answer the research questions: How ecological design principles can be applied for re-design of Toledo Riverfront (with requirements of the design competition)? and What is the ecological design in landscape architecture? I participated in the USA design competition with the aim to create a vision and redesign of Toledo Riverfront in Ohio State, USA. The site is located in the south point of Lake Erie. As a result of a long industrial activity, riverfront of Toledo had been transformed into inaccessible and abandoned brownfields. In my proposal I applied ecological design principles on three scales: the city of Toledo by reinforcing of ecological connection and creating green corridors along the river; the intermediate scale by suggesting public parks along the river front and on the fine level by proposing detailed design including remediation of the site and use of dredged material.

The aim of this study was to examine how two integrating social enterprises relate to and combines social, ecological and economic sustainability and how they work with sustainable development in the field of social work. The study has been focusing on three questions: What are the values underpinning ?Macken? and ?Vägen uts? approach to sustainable development? What motivates these companies to work with ecological sustainability in the creation of new jobs? How do these companies combine social, ecological and economic sustainability? To answer our questions we have been interviewing nine employees through semi-structured interviews combined with observations and this study was analysed through a symbolic perspective. The conclusion of this study showed that these companies worked with specific themes to reach social sustainability. Recurring themes in the study was empowerment, recovery and the employee?s own experience of exclusion.

Pets like dogs and cats have a considerable importance for humans and research demonstrate a variety of positive economic and social effects in society due to our pet companions. The presences of pets are increasing on a global scale with correlation to economic development in low- and middle income countries. For example dogs have doubled in India over a five year period. The feed industry for dogs and cats is also the fastest growing sector in the food industry and certain pets have a significant animal protein intake which, depending on the choice of resources may provide a high ecological footprint. Examples of environmental effects with distribution and manufacturing of pet food are increased greenhouse gas emissions, waste, use of water and energy.

Stormwater from trafficked areas often contains high pollution levels. In traditional stormwater management design, stormwater is first transported away through piped networks, and then in most cases passes through oil separators before finally reaching the recipients. While this traditional method removes certain pollutants from the stormwater, it does not reduce the total flow, as in the case of ecological stormwater management. In the ecological method the stormwater is not simply transported away, but is recirculated through infiltration, percolation, and detention. The aim of this study is to investigate possible advantages of ecological management designs, in contrast to traditional management.

In ambition to produce more and better harvests, artificial fertilizers are used to produce a better growth of crops in the agriculture landscape. This contributes to leakage of nutrients. Our forests also exhibit a leakage of nutrients. Air pollution contributes to more nutrients. High precipitation with high water flows as a consequence seems currently to occur more frequently in the county of Halland.

Several studies indicate that Swedish men consume more meat than women, more frequently appear in advertisements for meat and more often than women handle the grilling of meat. Production of meat is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse-gas emissions and thereby poses a challenge for ecological sustainability. Several Swedish politicians and authorities have argued that reduced meat consumption is necessary to prevent continued global climate change. To understand and change consumption patterns we need to understand the consumer. This essay uses textual analysis to examine how Swedish men through text and images in three cookbooks use preparation and consumption of meat to construct different masculinities.

The aim of this thesis is to study discursive change in the Swedish environmental political discourse between 1987-2005. The text of three Swedish budget propositions are analysed for this purpose.The results from the analysis are related to a few relevant theoretical perspectives that hold partly different views on what constitutes ?sustainable development? and ?ecological modernization?. Through these theories the thesis continues the discussion around the two central but somewhat blurry terms sustainable development and ecological modernization. The aim of this discussion is to conclude whether the discursive change in Swedish environmental politics can be said to go more in the direction of sustainable development or ecological modernization, or if elements of both perspectives can be found.The analysis shows that the Swedish environmental discourse has come to include more and more political fields such as general welfare politics, during the period.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether placement, using a special display, of ecological products, will have an effect on consumer buying behaviour and thereby sales of these products. When talking about sales we refer to the amount of ecological products that are being bought, habitual and unplanned, as a response due to the placement of the products in-store. To further elucidate the purpose, the thesis will focus on if the placement of the products itself will have an impact on the customers? attitude towards buying ecological products. A deductive approach was applied where we did a quantitative study using triangulation to receive data to reveal if the placement of ecological products had any effect on the sales of these products.

Cultivable land is a limited resource and agriculture contributes to some of the most serious environmental problems facing the planet like, global warming, eutrophication and loss of biodiversity. The specialized, industrial agriculture with monoculture and extensive input of external energy, commercial fertilizer, and chemical pesticides are all essentially unsustainable. An adaptation to other methods of production is necessary to preserve the environment for future generations. The aim of this study is to describe the factors that distinguish sustainable from unsustainable agriculture. The results will be used to examine if and how the European Union (EU) works in order to create a more sustainable agricultural industry and to analyze the preconditions for such development.