Samhället försöker ställa om från en linjär ekonomi, som varit normen, till en cirkulär ekonomi (CE): en ekonomi som genomsyras av att förlänga produkters livslängd, konsumera mindre och ta tillvara på de ändliga naturresurser som finns kvar. Avfall är något som inte ska ses som avfall, men som resurs i det cirkulära. Till hjälp finns styrdokument, lagstiftning och verktyg att ta del av, på internationell, nationell och lokal nivå, ett av dem är EUs avfallshierarki. I fallstudien undersöks hur medarbetare på Malmöbaserade Sysav (Sydskånes avfallsaktiebolag) arbetar med cirkulära flöden och CE i sitt vardagliga arbete, hur de ser på avfallshierarkin och hur de förhåller sig till styrdokument. Semistrukturerade intervjuer användes som metod och totalt intervjuades tio anställda på företaget. Resultatet visar att medarbetarna på Sysav, på grund av deras olika erfarenheter och yrkesroller, arbetar väldigt olika med cirkulära flöden, och har olika tankar kring vad det innebär. Det framkommer en rad nya idéer till förbättringar och effektiviseringar som skulle kunna implementeras. Slutligen visar Sysav som företag att det finns en rad åtgärder som kan tillämpas för skapa fler cirkulära flöden. / The society is actively trying to change from a linear economy, which has been the norm, to a circular economy: a society permeated by extending the life of products, consuming less and making use of the finite natural resources that remain. Waste is something that should be seen as resources. There are guiding documents, legislation and tools, like the EU’s waste hierarchy, to follow and make use of, at an international, a national and a local level. This case study examines how employees at Malmö-based Sysav (Sydskånes avfallsaktiebolag) work with circular flows and circular economy in their everyday work, how they view the waste hierarchy and how they relate to governing documents. Semi-structured interviews were used as the method and ten employees at the company were interviewed. The result shows that the employees at Sysav, due to their different experiences and professional roles, work very differently with circular flows, and have different ideas about what it means. A number of new ideas for improvements and efficiencies emerge that could be implemented. Finally, Sysav as a company shows that there are a number of measures that can be applied to create more circular flows.

In this thesis I study the relationship between Malmö Stad, a municipal government agency and external actors in a municipal based EU-project. The project in question is Food Loop System, a pilot project to the larger Cleantech TIPP project by Gate21, partially funded by the EU program Interreg ÖKS. The goal of this study is to establish whether the relationship between public and private or external actors in EU-projects can be considered democratic. Furthermore, the study seeks to bring in a new perspective on how projects can be considered democratic as previous studies have often focused on the relation between politics and public officials rather than external actors' influence on projects. In the thesis I do this by using Robert Dahl's ideal types for democracy and the use of a multilevel governance theory. Robert Dahl's theory is used to study the relationship between actors and the multilevel governance theory is used to establish if the project can be regarded as a type of multilevel governance and what effect that has on the democratic ideals. The study concludes that the relation between Malmö stad and external actors in the project Food Loop System can be considered democratic along with the project as a whole. Furthermore, the negative connotations of multilevel governance are not prevalent enough in the project as it fails to live up to most of the criteria required to be considered a type of multilevel governance, which means most criticism against multilevel governance can't be directed towards the project.