We have chosen to study the sustainability policy for two famous hotels that located in the middle of Norrkoping. The hotels are The Lamp and the Best Western Princess Hotel, they have different standards about foodservice, but they have common goals about environmental requirements that should be implemented. The environmental requirements imply that the hotels should work with sustainability policy to become environmental certificated for example about food, cleaning and waste management. The purpose with this essay is to see if the chosen hotels work with the sustainability policy and environmental aspects that leads to the sustainability tourism in the hotel sector. To be able to study these described environmental aspects and to also get answers on our question formulations, we have interviewed persons that work in the hotels within the area that we have chosen to focus on. With the help of our informants’ knowledge and our theory connection to sustainability tourism, we have analyzed the hotels work with environmental performance standards and sustainability tourism. We have also discussed how the hotels see themselves as environmental-friendly from without the touristy perspective. The results we got on this essay were: Both the hotels have daily routines for cleaning and waste management. The interviewed persons are aware about the environmental work and the requests that refer to restrain the negative environmental effect. The food products and service that the hotels use are environmental-friendly.

In political philosophy, power and responsibility are known to be two sides of the same coin. Yet surprisingly, corporate political power has not been strongly featured in the long-standing debate surrounding Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), despite the parallel debate on the influence of business in policy-making. The political dimension of CSR and its intrinsic relationship with Corporate Political Power (CPP) has been under-researched. This thesis adds to the CSR debate by investigating the processes and mechanisms by which CSR activities contribute to the power of the firm in the political arena, in the context of the British construction industry. Drawing on the literature on power, political activity and extended corporate citizenship, a conceptual model of the relationship between CSR and CPP was developed. The model was underpinned by insights from the Institutional Theory, the Resource Dependence Theory, and the Resource-Based View of the firm. Using a hybrid constructivist-realism epistemology and a processbased analysis, three exploratory case studies were carried out in construction companies operating in the UK. Data were collected through archival research and semi-structured interviews, and analysed by means of within and cross-case analyses. The results revealed that the political environment of the firm was analogous to a marketplace where companies traded political goods with policy-makers. CSR activities produced four political goods, namely public image, technical expertise, social capital and indebtedness, which were identified as the mechanisms by which CSR contributed to CPP. The impacts of CSR activities on CPP were three-fold: CSR strengthened the privileged structural position of companies; helped them gain easier access to policy-makers; and this privileged access gave companies more opportunities to influence regulatory outcomes. The key theoretical contribution of the thesis is a processual model that illustrates how CSR contributes to CPP. There are also implications for practice. CSR activities are velvet curtains that hide the operationalisation of political power. The social and political implications call for the attention of government officials who favour a neoliberal doctrine for the promotion of CSR to business.

This dissertation reviews the progress in climate, land, energy and water (CLEW) multi-scale models and proposes a framework for quantitative assessment of multi-sector long-term policies. The so-called CLEW nexus approaches have shown their usefulness in assessing strategies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in the contexts of increasing demands, resource scarcity, and climate change. This thesis contributes to existing research by (1) focusing on the palette of feasible long-term sustainable solutions at different scales to face current and future sustainable development challenges; (2) improving understanding of how CLEW models can best advise on sustainable development research and highlighting the strengths and limitations of existing configurations; (3) inquiring what is needed for new tools to be accessible, transferable and successful in informing the final user. This dissertation first reviews a set of models that can meet the needs of decision makers discussing research gaps and critical needs and opportunities for further model development from a scientific viewpoint. Particular attention is given to model accessibility, usability, and community support. The review explores at different scales where and why some nexus interactions are most relevant, finding, for example, that both very small scale and global models tend to neglect some CLEW interactions. This dissertation also presents the Nexus Solutions Tool (NEST): a new open modeling platform that integrates multi-scale energy-water-land resource optimization with distributed hydrological modeling. The new approach provides insights into the vulnerability of water, energy and land resources to future socioeconomic and climatic change and how multi-sectoral policies, technological solutions and investments can improve the resilience and sustainability of transformation pathways while avoiding counterproductive interactions among sectors. Finally, a case study analysis of the Indus River Basin in South Asia demonstrates the capability of the NEST framework to capture important interlinkages across system transformation pathways towards the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. The results show how the Indus countries could lower costs for development and reduce soil pollution and water stress, by cooperating on water resources, electricity and food production. / Graduate

. / This study is about the on-ground implementation of sustainable farm practices supported by policies and directives that form the core of the European Union’s sustainability policy. Its goal is to identify the blockers to effective policy implementation in order to improve the approach to sustainability in the agricultural sector. Exploring ways to engage local stakeholders in farm sustainability has been central to create a holistic understanding about the processes that drive practices in agriculture systems, and the extent to which these processes can be transformed. Sustainability in agriculture is a broad topic, hence this study focuses on one segment of sustainability namely the use and management of water resources in irrigated agriculture. The study’s final recommendations to improve policy design and interventions, however, are general and apply to the implementation of all sustainable farm practices. Practical effectiveness of EU policies and directives for sustainable agriculture is constrained by: a lack of evaluating criteria to measure policy impact and communicate progress; incentives for growers to commit to more than the minimum required, and continuous local renegotiation of proposed measures and programmes which have contributed to a weakening of initial policy proposals. This study demonstrates that policies serve different purposes for different people at different social and political levels. However, sustainability comes into practice on the farm, which is why farmers’ perspective about a sustainable agricultural sector and the proposed voluntary and mandatory policy measures is so important. Farmers’ perspectives are still missing elements in policy design for sustainable agriculture. Co-developing and testing technologies that are meant to deliver sustainability in practice, as well as farm decision support tools, are critical in engaging farmers and other local stakeholders in sustainability and to transform embedded practices and institutions. Collaboration across disciplines is also important to address environmental goals and farmers’ needs in order to extract substantial environmental benefits as well as a long term commitment from land managers in sustainability. This study shows that there are many insights to be gained and learnings to be extracted from scrutinizing policy interventions. It raises awareness about improving policy implementation by providing practical examples from case studies conducted in Spain and in Italy. These insights encourage the use of interdisciplinary approaches, including socio-technical approaches, for an integrated people and technology based perspective on natural resource management to better policy design and interventions and make sustainable agriculture real.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (Public Administration) / The significance of small, micro, and medium enterprises (SMEs) development cannot be overemphasized because it plays a considerable role in a nation's economy particularly in developing countries. SMEs' contributions include job creation, expanding the means of sustainable livelihoods and ensuring impartial distribution of wealth amongst citizens. This study evaluates monitoring and evaluation systems, policy and programmes of the Small Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to develop and transform the informal sector of the economy. The main purpose of the establishment of SMEDAN is to facilitate the promotion and development of a structured and effective small and medium enterprises sector that will provide informal employment for unemployed, and enhance sustainable livelihood and economic development in Nigeria. Unemployment and increased poverty levels are key challenges to the government of Nigeria, which has resulted in socio-economic and political unrest across the nation. Against the background of high unemployment rate, especially amongst the youth and the deteriorating fortunes of small and medium businesses in Nigeria, questions can be asked in relation to current initiatives and policies to support SME sector.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore a local organization’s adoption of global sustainability policy, in terms of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Agenda is a response to global sustainability challenges which require action by international cooperation and actors on all levels. For such a policy to fulfill its purpose, means of implementation must be ensured. This study aims to answer both why and how a small organization located in Malmö, Sweden, has adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, and what it implies for its operations. More specifically, the focus is on the perceptions of people involved in the selected case organization. These perceptions have been captured by interviews. In addition to the interviews, the case data also consists of a document that directs parts of the organization’s operations. Furthermore, to connect the global and local levels, the case data is supplemented with the 2030 Agenda. By conducting a thematic analysis, our main findings indicate that the SDGs are adoptable to a local organization, but that their main function seems to be to frame and legitimize already existing activities in a context of sustainable development.