<p>Kraven på att företag skall arbeta med att minska sin miljöpåverkan har blivit hårdare från samhällets sida. Ett verktyg för småföretag som vill jobba systematiskt med miljöfrågor är miljödiplom, där Stockholms stads miljödiplom är ett av dessa. Stockholms stads miljödiplom är uppbyggt i tre nivåer och det tar ett år att genomföra varje nivå.</p><p>Syftet med denna studie är att studera vilka konsekvenser och förändringar som sker när företag diplomerar sig med Stockholms stads miljödiplom. Detta kommer att analyseras utifrån organisationsteori med tonvikt på förändringar. För att svara på syftet har diplomeringsansvariga för sex företag, fördelade på två per nivå i miljödiplomet, intervjuats om sitt arbete med miljödiplomeringen samt hur miljöarbetet påverkat den dagliga verksamheten inom företaget.</p><p>Resultat och slutsatser visade att kundkrav var den främsta faktorn till varför företagen diplomerade sig med miljödiplomet. Företagen valde Stockholms stads miljödiplom då det är bättre anpassat för småföretag än ISO 14001. Miljödiplomet uppfattas dock inte som tillräckligt känt i företagskretsar, utan där framstår ISO 14001 som mest erkänt. Trots miljödiplomet har inte miljöarbetet blivit direkt integrerat i företagens verksamheter vilket kan bero på bristande kommunikation mellan de diplomeringsansvariga och övriga anställda. De anställda var inte delaktiga i diplomeringsarbetet vilket kan vara en orsak till att inga större förändringar i den dagliga verksamheten hade skett i majoriteten av företagen. Företagen i studien har behövt mycket hjälp från Miljöcentrum, som är ansvariga för Stockholms stads miljödiplom, vilket innebär att kompetensen om miljödiplomet inte alltid skapades eller fanns inom företaget.</p>

<p>The Baltic Sea is the one of the most studied seas area in the world and it is severely affected by human activities where eutrophication is the overall environmental problem. Although there is an international agreement that nutrient input to the Baltic should be reduced, the measures taken so far have not resulted in major reductions in nutrient inputs nor in environmental improvements. Sewage reduction is the most important factor for transparency improvement of the Baltic Proper and wetland restoration and change of N spreading time have no effective role in this aspect. Within the Baltic area, establishment of sewage treatment technology in Russia and Poland is more cost-effective than it would be in Sweden. Without this measure transparency improvement would be expensive. In Sweden NOx reduction is most cost-effective measure for transparency improvement in the Baltic Proper and without this measure the total cost would be ~ 58.5 million euro.</p>

<p>Rivers have been playing most important role as fresh water source and medium of nutrient transportation from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystem. Inorganic form of nutrients (DSi, DIN and DIP) are plant available mostly control the productivity of aquatic ecosystem. Transfer of these nutrients in higher concentrations cause harmful eutrophication in receiving water body.</p><p>Study of dissolved inorganic nutrients concentrations in 12 Swedish rivers of different basin characteristics demonstrated both similar and varying behaviour from river to river and from season to season depending on catchment hydrology; land use and geology. Highest concentration did not coincide with the highest runoff. High DSi concentration observed in the unperturbed rivers however, high DIN and DIP concentration observed in agriculture dominated river followed by river basin dominated by industrial and urban activities. DSi and DIN concentration observed high in winter and decreased through spring to reach lowest in summer. DIP concentration although found low in summer but high concentration observed in early spring and early autumn. Rivers with low average runoff positively correlated with DSi and DIN concentration however, DIP demonstrated weak correlation.</p>

Since 2006 California has been pursuing the most ambitious climate change policy in the United States, implementing a suite of greenhouse gas reduction measures ranging from automobile refrigerant disposal rules to clean energy standards for electric power utilities. The most significant of these measures is the creation of a cap‐and‐trade program. Through this program, regulators seek to create a knowable price‐signal to incentivize emissions reductions among polluters. Using a suite of ethnographic methods, this dissertation looks at the people, ideas, and institutions that have been mobilized in the creation of California’s cap‐and‐ trade program. Substantively, the dissertation engages with three key aspects of the program. First, the way that economic theory is deployed in the creation of the rules of exchange, and how that theory is made to take a compromised but still structuring role in light of the political pressures on regulators in writing the rules of exchange in financial representations of greenhouse gases. Second, the dissertation examines the diverse values, economic and non‐economic, in play during the creation of financial representations of greenhouse gases; and third, the environmental and social justice ramifications of structuring an emissions reduction program around the motivation of doing so at the lowest possible cost to polluters. Theoretically, this dissertation is informed by political ecology on the commodification of nature, commodity theory drawn from economic geography and political economy, and sociological theories of economic practice primarily originating from the social studies of finance. The conclusion of the dissertation is that the result of countless hours of work by regulators and their interlocutors is a suite of market‐like mechanisms that ultimately function more like the administrative tool that environmental markets’ early advocates envisioned rather than the full‐blown financialization of the atmosphere, though with potentially detrimental environmental impacts for vulnerable communities.

Forest carbon projects seek to alleviate rural poverty and mitigate global climate change by facilitating the flow of capital from actors looking to offset CO2 emissions to land managers willing to engage in offset-oriented reforestation, afforestation, and forest preservation activities. In Mexico, forest carbon schemes have been pursued within the country’s national Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) program, and through REDD+ pilot projects and separate voluntary initiatives. In this dissertation, I explore one voluntary project, Scolel’ Te, which is managed by the non-governmental organization (NGO), AMBIO. Focusing on the case of Scolel’ Te, I show how forest carbon projects undermine social relations in ways that weaken participating communities and threaten project success. First, I examine how carbon forestry market integration undermines social relations by pushing risk on participant labor and encouraging the establishment of disenfranchising labor arrangements. Second, I analyze how farmer participation in Scolel’ Te undermines social relations within broader community settings. Such effects, I argue, are only visible when analyzing the social ramifications of carbon forestry within the context of intra-community social relations. Finally, drawing on labor studies, I critically re- assess the role of participatory methods in carbon forestry, suggesting that they undermine the social relations of production between farmers and project managers, thereby threatening project success. This analysis demonstrates how shifting market dynamics, historical factors, and labor processes converge in the context of carbon forestry, and underscores the implications of such work for participating farmers and carbon forestry more broadly.

Through a qualitative analysis of the use of intestinal parasites for treating immune system disorders, this research illustrates how contingency emerges in the context of the human relationship to hookworms. The affect of the human–nonhuman relationship is an important part of understanding the direction of evolutionary medicine today, and has implications for the politics of biological health innovations. The shift from the bad parasite to a parasite that at least sometimes heals, discursively and materially, has opened new spaces for patients to change the way they relate to medical knowledge, medical professionals, and pharmaceutical companies. Hookworms are banned by the FDA, which sets the scene for lively, but sometimes rebellious, hybridity between host and parasite. Underground and do-it-yourself hookworm therapy cultures have sprung up in around the site of the gut. I argue that not only is material hookworm affect as important as human discourses in negotiating the rapidly advancing field of biome reconstruction, but it also plays a role in how that biome reconstruction takes place, conventionally or otherwise.

Commercial fisheries in the Florida Keys have experienced a significant decline in participation and harvest over the past two decades, with over half of the fishers exiting the fishery since 1990 and a 50-70% decline in annual landings compared to previous decades. The conventional narrative of fisheries management identifies overfishing and overcapacity as the malaise endemic to open-access fisheries systems, for which the remedy offered is technocratic management. Technocratic management, which seeks to restore ecological integrity and economic efficiency, has been increasingly employed in the Florida Keys, in the form of limited access and property rights measures. I contend that the technocratic management approach is flawed and in a large part responsible for the decline of Florida Keys fisheries because the approach has ignored social sustainability, leading to a significant reduction in fisher participation, the fragmentation of fishing communities, and erosion of social capital. Technocratic management has also underestimated the importance of non-fishery factors, unique to place, and these factors – including population, tourism, and globalization factors – have exacerbated the impacts of management measures. The net result has been the opening up of scarce and valuable coastal space, which was previously occupied by fishers, fish houses and processors, and other fisheries infrastructure, to conversion for non-working waterfront uses. While measures have been undertaken to foster fisher participation and slow down waterfront conversion, these have largely failed due to the measures’ inability to address the core problem, which is the flawed management approach that undermines social sustainability. I provide a revised, comprehensive fisheries management framework that, if implemented, can at least address some of the technocratic management’s shortcomings and prevent further decline in fisher participation and fisheries decline.

O objetivo da pesquisa é refletir a respeito de iniciativas de desenvolvimento sustentável e segurança alimentar entre os povos indígenas na Terra Indígena do Alto Rio Negro, localizada no município de São Gabriel da Cachoeira AM, com foco sobre os projetos de piscicultura entre os Baniwa que habitam as margens do rio Içana e afluentes. Os projetos de piscicultura foram implementados pela Federação das Organizações Indígenas do Rio Negro (FOIRN) e apoiados pelo Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) e, entre os Baniwa, as atividades têm como sede principal a Escola Indígena Baniwa e Coripaco Pamáali. Na escola, técnicos indígenas de piscicultura e alunos em geral participam de treinamentos, oficinas e aulas a respeito de temas como sustentabilidade, manejo do meio ambiente e biodiversidade, e aprendem técnicas de reprodução artificial de peixes em laboratório. A intenção da pesquisa é captar os pontos de vista dos diversos atores envolvidos com esse projeto, de forma a mostrar como técnicos indígenas, lideranças de associações e assessores técnicos não indígenas entendem e negociam entre si a importância e as motivações dos projetos, além das definições dos entes associados a eles como os peixes e o meio ambiente e as maneiras pelas quais se dão as interações entre os conhecimentos indígenas e científicos. Como se procurou evidenciar, para os indígenas envolvidos com os projetos, mais do que a produção de peixes e a resolução de um problema ambiental, o interesse nos projetos estava associado à ampliação das relações e à incorporação e controle dos conhecimentos alheios. / The objective of this research is to reflect upon sustainable development and food safety initiatives among the indigenous peoples in an Upper Rio Negro indigenous land, located in the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira AM (Brazil). The focus is on the pisciculture project executed with the Baniwa that inhabit the riverside and the tributaries of the Içana River. This project was implemented by the Federation of Indigenous Organizations of the Rio Negro (FOIRN, by its name in Portuguese) and supported by the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA, by its name in Portuguese). Among the Baniwa, the projects main base is the Baniwa and Coripaco Indigenous School Pamáali, where the indigenous pisciculture technicians and students participate in trainings, workshops and classes on topics such as sustainability, environmental management and biodiversity, and learn the techniques of artificial reproduction of fish in laboratory. The intention of this research is to capture the points of view of different actors involved with the project, in order to show how indigenous technicians, leaders of associations and non-indigenous technical advisors understand and negotiate the importance and the motivations of the projects, besides the definitions of the beings associated with them like the fish and the environment and the interactions between indigenous and scientific knowledge. As we sought to evidence, for the indigenous people involved with the project, more than the production of fish and the resolution of an environmental problem, the interest in the projects was associated with the expansion of relations and the incorporation and control of alien knowledges.

The way humans currently interact with the atmosphere and oceans around us is unsustainable, with pollution entering our waters faster than we are collecting it, and the sea level rising faster than we are building coastal barriers to protect our current infrastructure. This thesis explores the common methodology for communicating climate change and its future effects, and highlights an opportunity for using infrastructure to facilitate interaction with the urban-aquatic interface. By promoting experiential contact with the natural spaces that are most at risk to climate change’s impacts, a sense of stewardship for those spaces will spur behavioral change and activism. On a local level, this thesis explores the history of public access to San Onofre State Beach, and the possibility for the restriction of that access in 2021. Using a 3D topographic and bathymetric model of San Onofre State Beach, I attempt to highlight the beauty of the undeveloped California coastline, and the benefits of keeping this 6.5-mile coastline within the State Parks system.

Extreme heat events are the deadliest natural hazard in the United States and will continue to get worse in the coming years due to the effects of climate change. As a result, more people will experience deadly heat conditions. This highlights the need for decision-makers to develop better strategies for preventing future losses. How badly individuals are affected by extreme heat depends on many circumstances, such as how high temperatures actually are, weather conditions, and location. For example, a dry 90 °F day in Phoenix is probably more tolerable than a humid 90 °F day in New Orleans for most individuals. However, some groups of people are more likely to be harmed by extreme heat than others, such as the elderly and those who work outdoors. This may seem straightforward, but uncovering less obvious clues that help explain how and why some groups are affected differently by extreme heat can be difficult, since much of the impact of extreme heat depends on people’s judgements of the risk and their personal decisions. These human factors are typically not very easy to measure because different hazards affect different people indifferent ways at different times in different places. This study uses a large survey of the U.S. population and statistical methods to explore how weather, time, space, and personal experience with heat affect different people’s judgment of risk. Whether different groups understand their high or low risk status has important implications for decision-makers responsible for crafting plans to reduce extreme heat risk in their local community.