In the last years people has become more aware of issues regarding corporate social responsibility. This has led to a more thorough control of big multinational companies, which are often held account of violating social, ethical and environmental values. The term most often used for this is corporate social responsibility (CSR). H&M is a Swedish multinational company and the concept of H&M is fashion to a low price. The material most often used in producing clothes is cotton.

Changes in the environment are affecting the world market, and pressures from several stakeholders? are forcing different enterprises to adjust to the current situation. Farmers? difficult working conditions and environmental impacts of the conventional cotton production in India have been highlighted. The small-scale production that is characterising India?s cotton farmers implies an insufficient competition power.

Organic cotton has been in the medias field of vision for quite some time. This interestalso reflects in a growing awareness in the textile industry where more and morecompanies today offer Organic cotton in their product range. With this in mind wequestion whether Organic cotton has become a viable commercial product. We alsoacknowledge there is a lacking of understanding the complex problems that organiccotton manufacture involves, for example the huge effort and cost required for a transitionfrom conventional to Organic cotton farming.The purpose of this paper was to study how textile, ecology and competition today arebeing combined by companies. We wanted with our investigation to find out whethercompanies in the textile industry use ecology as a competitive advantage.

Syftet med vår uppsats var att undersöka vilken kunskap den svenska konsumenten har om ekologisk bomull samt om de handlar kläder av ekologisk bomull. Vi genomförde en enkätstudie med både kvalitativa och kvantitativa inslag. Enkätundersökningen utfördes i centrala Göteborg vid fem tillfällen under april. Både män och kvinnor mellan 20-60 år tillfrågades. Vid analysen av enkäterna valde vi att ta ut statistik i diagram och tabeller.

A plant's defensive ability against herbivore attack can be influenced by many different factors, one of them being domestication. During human selection to improve the yield of plants, the resistance against herbivore attack can have been lowered, due to a trade-off for use of resources between these traits in the plants. In this thesis I investigated the effect of domestication on resistance against herbivorous insects in cotton plants. I used different varieties and species of wild and domesticated cotton in three different experiments. A feeding assay was conducted, the mortality, development time and pupal weight of larvae of the Egyptian cotton leaf worm Spodoptera littoralis was studied. In a second experiment the preference of the root-feeding beetle Agriotes spp.

AbstractThe urgency to find alternative fabrics to conventionally produced cotton is increasing as vast amounts of agrochemicals are used and a lot of irrigation is required. In this literature survey the potential of organic cultivation practices to produce highly qualitative hemp fibre, suitable for the textile industry, was investigated. The definition of a fibre in the textile context as well as of the qualities that are essential for a textile fibre was necessary as a base for the discussion in this thesis. The quality parameters looked at were fineness, strength, length, friction, and colour. The impact of external growth factors and plant development on these quality properties are discussed.

The interest for organic food has grown a lot over the last 15 years. Even so, only 3.5 % ofthe share of wallet in Sweden goes to organic food. The purpose of this study is to examine and describe how retailers can get consumers to buy more organic fruits and vegetables. The study was carried out by visiting six Coop Konsum-stores, of which three performed poorly and three performed well in organic sales. We conducted interviews with the department managers, customer surveys and in-store observations.

Allt fler konsumenter väljer att göra ekologiska val, detta på grund av en ökad medvetenhet samt ett intresse för miljön. Bomull är en av de fibrer som används mest i kläder, trots detta så är bomullsproduktionen väldigt påfrestande för miljön. Mycket giftiga kemikalier, konstgödsel samt stora mängder vatten används vid dessa odlingar. Då bomullsodlingar är så pass resurskrävande måste alla klädföretag visa sitt engagemang i denna fråga. Detta kan göras på olika sätt, att välja ekologisk bomull framför konventionell bomull är då ett steg i riktning då den ekologiska bomullen är helt befriad från kemikalier och andra farliga medel.Syftet är att denna rapport ska verka som ett underlag för klädföretag som i dagsläget inte använder sig av ekologisk bomull.

AbstractThe customer demand for ecological products has increased in recent years, within the garden industry this mainly concerns herbs and other edible plants. The organic trend is increasing and more people are aware of the environment and want to take responsibility for it through their purchases for their garden as well.In this essay the aim is to investigate customer demand and the possibility of selling organicperennial plants in eight garden centres on the Åland islands and in Gävle/Sandviken. I include two garden centres with an organic profile to get a wider point of view. I investigate the global market for organic perennials and look further into existing certification standards on the Swedish market today.The methods I have been using are interviews and a literature study.The study shows that the experienced demand for organic perennials is small in both of myinvestigated groups. The biggest motivation for starting to sell organic perennials would be to find a supplier of these plants and that more customer would ask for them.

According to the EEG-councils regulation nr 2092/91, all seed used in organic production must have organic origin. All seed which is offered for sale must be controlled by KRAV, and also comply with the rules of the seedlegislation. The seedlegislation contains demands respecting origin, quality, growingconditions and freedom from deseases. In this piece of work I will investigate the profitability of organic potatoseedproduction, and also what it takes to produce potatoseed. The workmethod has been to, with help from counsellors and growers, make some compareable calculations for foodpotatoes and seedpotatoes, and also with help from a literaturestudy investigate which requires an organic seedcultivation must fulfil. In this piece of work I found out that the organic potatoseedproduction still is to insecure to be profitable. The attack of potatoleafmould, which is out of control, cause unequal yields and this will bring that the new EU-rules, concerning organic seed, not seems defendable yet..

Our common future involves many important challenges. People and nature need to improve the relationship in order to reach an ecologically sustainable development. In a society where consumption of products steadily increases, the consumer awareness about social and environmental issues connected to the products becomes an importent factor. More and more companies choose to work more actively with these issues and more and more products get labelled by some of the eco labelling organisations. From the cradle to the gate means that a study has been done on a part of a products life cycle.

The objective of this study was to make an inventory and a potential analysis of the organic beef production in the region of Gävleborg, Sweden. A survey was conducted, where a questionaire was sent to all farmers in the region who had environmental subsidies concerning organic cropping systems in 2001. In total, there were 701 farmers, of which 46 % participated in the study. Three slaughter houses were interviewed to get their pictures of the development of organic beef production. The study shows that there are potentials and interests in the region to increase the production of organic beef.

Background: Pesticides in conventional food may be related to morbidity and mortality. Furthermore pesticides have a negative impact on the whole ecosystem. Organic food can presume better health as they contain less chemicals and toxins and contribute to sustainable development efforts.Objective: The aim was to examine what attitudes consumers have regarding to purchase organic fruit, vegetables and root vegetables.Methods: The association between consumers? views on conventional food and organic food was investigated using questionnaire given to a population sample of men and women aged by 23-65 (N=60) in grocery stores and in a fitness center. The study was based on a cross-sectional study in a municipality in central Sweden.Results: Consumers were interested to buy organic food.

There are many eco-brands on food products. It can be confusing for the consumer to know which one to trust or choose and since July 2012, there is an EU law and a mandatory EU organic label that must be displayed on all food products marketed as organic, eco or bio.Organic brands from a consumer perspective have previously been studied in England. This is a similar study in the form of focus groups, to explore and examine how consumers perceive and trust organic brand or labels in Sweden. It also explores which knowledge consumers have regarding why a product has an organic brand and what it means.The study shows that consumers perceive organic brands by brand recognition rather than knowledge regarding what each label means. It also shows that the consumer is confused by and skeptical to the wide range of markings and symbols on organic food products.

This study was made to compare and distinguish any differences in olfactory recognition and host plant adaptation between two strains of cotton leaf worm, Spodoptera littoralis. The populations used were established in Egypt and Benin, Africa. The documentation consisted of information about (1) each of the strains development through the larval stage up to pupation on diets of cotton, clover and cowpea. (2) Their oviposition preferences as adults between cotton, clover, cowpea, maize and cabbage. (3) Electroantennographic recordings to quantify any possible responses to plant volatiles. Throughout the diet experiments the larvae from the Benin strain showed significantly a better development between artificial, clover, cowpea and cotton respectively, while the Egypt strain had significance between artificial, cotton and cowpea/clover as diet. Also noted was how the strains substantial development of weight differentiated if fed the cotton diet, followed by the cowpea diet showing that the Benin strain would develop a higher body mass on a cotton diet as well as on a cowpea diet. This trend was however switched once the pupal stage was reached, where the Egyptian strain contained a significantly greater body mass than the Benin strain on the artificial and the Benin strain a greater on cowpea, which suggests that in the end, the Benin strain develops significantly better on cowpea while the Egypt strain develops better on an artificial diet. During the oviposition experiment that both stains showed a clear difference in hierarchy of host plants considered suitable for oviposition, where the Egyptian strain is significantly more attracted to clover than the Benin strain. Also showed with electroantennographic recordings and significant values was the higher sensitivity the Egypt strain had towards (E)2-hexenal, (E/Z)-b-ocimene, (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate, Nonanal, (-)-linalool and ?-myrcene when compared to the responses from the Benin strain..