In the wake of the increased digitalisation of the Swedish society, people who experience difficulties to utilise digital services turn to the public library for assistance. As a result, questions concerning how and to what extent the public library is supposed to support people in need of digital services is raised amongst the public library staff. The purpose of this thesis is thus to examine public library managers understanding of what role the institution should uphold in the midst of the depicted development, and how they enact in order to implement the defined role within the organisations they manage. The findings are based on qualitative interviews with seven public library managers from different municipalities i Västra Götalandsregionen. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using qualitative content analysis methodology, and the results were interpreted by means of Shaffer’s (2018) criterias for social sustainability within public library organisations. The findings display that the public library managers perceive a direct link between the Swedish library act and the role as information supplier and tutor of people in need of digital support. In order to utilise this understanding, the public library managers undertake various actions including securing good communications with staff, users and local politicians, facilitation of adequate training for staff members etc. while trying to establish above­named role, chiefly amongst the employees. Measured against Shaffer’s criterias and against literature on the viewpoints of librarians, users and politicians, these actions may have positive as well as negative effect on the public library’s social sustainability.

Dagens textilindustri präglas av en linjär värdekedja och har visat sig orsaka en av världens största negativa miljöpåverkan. I en alltmer växande befolkning och mellanklass ökar efterfrågan på klädprodukter, vilket sätter stor press på utbudet inom textilindustrin som i sin tur exploaterar mer råvaror och material samt orsakar föroreningar i naturen. Cirka 80 procent av miljöavtrycken sker inom produktionsledet inom värdekedjan och resterande 20 procent sker inom konsumtionsledet. Klädkonsumtionen har fördubblats mellan åren 2000 och 2015 i ett allt mer ”slit och släng” kultur. Huvudproblemen är resursexploatering och förorening av råvaror, vatten och kemikalieanvändning på stor global skala som orsakar natur och miljöproblem. Hoppet för dessa utmaningar kan vara en framtid med textila startup företag som drivs av cirkulära affärsmodeller och påbörjar omställningen till cirkulär ekonomi. På senare år har samhället belyst hållbarhetsproblem med en global omfattning. Det är avgörande för alla intressenter att balansera ekonomisk, ekologisk och social hållbarhet, som även kallas för Triple Bottom Line. Detta om vi ska undvika natur och miljömässiga katastrofer världen över. Studien syftar till att studera förutsättningar för ett samarbete med nya startup företag för att påbörja omställningen mot en cirkulär ekonomi i textilindustrin. Ekonomier för många företag och organisationer riskerar att välta om inte omställningen mot cirkulär ekonomi påbörjas snarast. Därför är det viktigt att etablerade företag inom linjära värdekedjan och startup företag med cirkulär affärsmodell samarbetar med varandra. Med de etablerade företagens ekonomiska hållbarhet får de ett socialt ansvar att stötta startup företag som bär på ekologisk hållbarhet och på så sätt skapar de social hållbarhet när ett framgångsrikt integrations samarbete uppfylls. Kunskapsbidraget med studien är våra framförda utvecklingsförslag och krav på hur ett samarbete kan se ut, i kontrast till dagens linjära värdekedja. På så sätt hoppas vi att våra slutresultat ska vara användbara för nuvarande och framtida företag inom textilindustrin. / Today’s textile industry is characterized by a linear value chain and one of the world's largest negative environmental impacts. In a growing population and middle-class economy, demand for clothing products is increasing. This puts a great deal of pressure on supply in the textile industry, which in turn exploits more raw materials and causes pollution in nature. About 80 percent of the environmental imprints occur in production within the value chain and the remaining 20 percent occur within the consumption. Clothing consumption has doubled between 2000 and 2015 in an increasingly "wear and tear" culture. The main problems are resource exploitation and pollution of raw materials, water and chemical use on a large global scale that causes nature and environmental problems. The hope for these challenges may be a future with textile startup companies that are driven by circular business models and begin the shift to circular economy. In recent years, society has highlighted sustainability problems with a global scale. It is crucial for all stakeholders to balance economic, ecological and social sustainability, also known as the Triple Bottom Line. This is to avoid nature and environmental disasters all over the world. The thesis aims to study the prerequisites for a collaboration with new startup companies to begin the shift towards a circular economy in the textile industry. Economies for many companies and organizations risk to fall if the shift towards circular economy doesn’t initiate as soon as possible. Therefore, it is important that established companies within the linear value chain and startup companies with circular business models cooperate with each other. The economical sustainability of the established companies gives them the role with social responsibility to support startup companies that carry ecological sustainability and thus create social sustainability when a successful cooperation is fulfilled. The contribution with the thesis is our developed proposals and requirements for how a collaboration could look like, in contrast to todays linear value chain. This way, we hope our results can be useful for current and future companies in the textile industry.

Leaders of public sector agencies must incorporate the voices of diversified stakeholders into planning and decision-making processes. With aging infrastructures around the world, public agencies are challenged to move public benefit projects forward when citizens are not engaged or empowered to participate in the process. The purpose of this triple bottom line (social, ecological, and financial) and social responsibility study was to explore whether public sector organizations are socially responsible by law. A case study was developed using data from publicly available documents and interviews that explored how the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) implemented a social responsibility framework that was grounded using the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 26000 guidelines, stakeholder theory, and corporate social responsibility theory. Data were collected using a researcher-developed questionnaire for face-to-face interviews with 20 elected officials, public agency executives, program managers, advisory group members, regional public sector members, and community stakeholders. Data were analyzed using direct interpretation, detailed description, establishment of correspondence and patterns, and categorical aggregation. Three themes emerged that demonstrated the existence of a socially responsible organizational framework at the SFPUC: unequivocal leadership support, allocation of adequate resources to fund the program, and a dynamic stakeholder-driven performance metrics and reporting system. The research findings may contribute to social change by demonstrating how ISO 26000 can help frame the performance measurement and reporting systems of public sector agencies and serve as a foundation for implementing stakeholder policies and procedures thus benefiting the public.

Since the beginning of the 2020’s the world has drastically changed and forced organisations to re-adapt, adjust and reconfigure their business in order to survive. The Covid-19 pandemic rewrote the map of conducting business, as well as the war in Ukraine was a catalyst for inflation, and thereafter rising interest rates. Simultaneously, the climate is suffering greatly from the human footprints, forcing humanity to act swiftly to avoid collapse of ecosystems and an irreversible global warming. Organisations and societies are therefore forced to change their way of production and consumption, to be able to adapt to these changes. However, there is limited research inwhat successful aspects make environmentally sustainable SMEs outlast business environments embedded by turbulence. Therefore, this study aims to shed light on the capabilities required and answer the research question: How do Swedish SMEs maintain their environmentally sustainable business practices when faced with a turbulent business environment? The raison d'être of this thesis is to investigate and deliver insights on how Swedish Small- and Medium sized Enterprises (SME) manoeuvre their environmentally sustainable business practices in an uncertain environment, and what characteristics are proven to be successful to cope with such conditions. In order to answer the research question and fulfil the purpose of this study, semi-structured interviews with 8 top managers within environmentally sustainable SMEs, were conducted under an inductive approach. Henceforth, the primary data offers important insights in how environmentally sustainable SMEs navigate through business environments embedded by turbulence. The findings suggest how the turbulent conditions of today are both of economic, as well as environmental aspect, forcing SMEs to implement environmentally sustainable practices at the core of their operations to be able to succeed. Hence, the SME must constantly manage the balance between profitability and environmental sustainability in order to make a positive impact on society. The findings further indicate that in order tomanage these turbulent conditions, it is evident that it is vital to be close to the market and understand its changing conditions, in combination with having the ability to be proactive and reactive towards the changes. Aside from this, the findings also emphasise the importance of valuable stakeholder relationships, as well as having an active and independent owner, in order to stay competitive during tough times. In conclusion, this study contributes to the theoretical aspects of Dynamic Capabilities and VUCA with emphasis on environmentally sustainable SMEs. Nevertheless, it also contributes with practical knowledge regarding how these types of organisations manage their environmentally sustainable business practices when times are tough.

The rapid and to some extent uncontrolled tourism expansion in Bali is likely to have major impacts on the island and its residents. Tourism development in Bali is a top priority for economic growth and is the main economic sector on the island. Sustainable tourism has become an increasingly important and recognized topic due to tourism’s inherent nature to generate both positive and negative economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts. Sustainable tourism development is about striking a balance between meeting the needs of local communities, satisfying tourist demand and protecting the natural environment. Residents of host communities are seen as a vital component of the tourism experience as they are the first to interact with tourists. The residents' perceptions are essential to assessing the feasibility of all types of development initiatives, as well as their perceptions are of great importance linked to their personal well-being. Social exchange theory (SET) and triple bottom line (TBL) were used as theoretical frameworks to fulfil the purpose of this study. The study aimed to create an understanding of how residents in Bali experienced the island’s tourism development, and whether and how it differed between residents of the two different destinations: Ubud and Canggu. By examining Bali residents' perceptions of tourism on the island, a small contribution can be made to tourism research from a resident-centric perspective. In turn, this can contribute to subjective indications concerning tourism that are likely to be important in a developing island context. The results showed that the perceived economic benefits outweighed both the socio-cultural, and environmental perceived costs. This result can be interpreted as being due to the residents' strong dependency on tourism, where their vulnerability should be taken into account in sustainable tourism development.

Background: COVID-19 pandemic had a vast and significant impact on today’s societies, in terms of economic, societal, and even environmental aspects. Global supply chains had to adapt to this changing landscape rapidly. Both supply and demand witnessed repercussions. The effects of COVID-19 on supply chains have been evident, with lockdowns and inconsistent supply and demand causing issues for international trade. Indeed, many companies were constrained to stop supply and production and could not deliver their goods.   Purpose: This study aims to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on transportation operations in logistics companies, more precisely by using the case of DHL to emphasize our study. The purpose is to analyze the impacts that the crisis had on Logistics operations, by focusing on DHL and the way the company was impacted, understood and overcame the disruption. This study will take into consideration economic, social and environmental aspects.   Method: The research will be based on a case study and empirical evidence to provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on DHL’s supply chain operations and more precisely on logistics and transport. We used the Triple Bottom Line approach to measure the economic, social, and environmental performances of DHL. Further, the analysis used in this paper is an inductive thematic analysis, to emphasize the findings and provide a better accuracy to our results.   Results: The study aims to identify the effects that COVID-19 had on logistics operations, and it more particularly seeks to highlight the strategies used by logistics companies that could be useful for other companies that need to build more resilient and flexible supply chains in the face of future disruptions. The findings of this thesis will be valuable to businesses, supply chain managers, and policymakers seeking to understand the role of improving their supply chains. Thanks to the interviews that were conducted, the findings highlighted several strategies that have been implemented by companies, such as the acceleration in automation, efforts put towards employee conditions, and restructuring companies.

Background: CSR has become an integral part of most businesses during the years, however, it has not necessarily happened by choice for every company. Stakeholders have become aware of the negative impact ofcorporations’ operations and actions on the planet and on society, consequently, they started to pressure companies to be more responsible when conducting business. However, facing financial shortages might interfere with the accomplishment of these practices and corresponding activities. Furthermore, as differently sized and differently located companies might practice CSR in a different way, size and geographical location might also have an influence on these CSR practices and activities. Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore the influence of size and geography on CSR practices and activities adopted by SMEs and large corporations in Sweden and in Hungary when facing shortage in their financial resources. Method: In order to achieve the purpose, a qualitative research method has been used. Multiple case studies were conducted with two Hungarian SMEs, a Hungarian large enterprise, a Swedish SME and a Swedish large firm. The empirical data was collected with the help of semi-structured interviews as well as data from corporate websites, annual reports, sustainability reports and social media. Conclusion: The results of this thesis show that the approach each company takes to practicing CSR seems to influence all of their activities. The size of the company appears to influence fewer practices, while geography comes across as having the least influence among these factors.

Commuters in urban areas suffer from traffic congestion on a daily basis. The increasing number of vehicles and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) are exacerbating this congested roadway problem for society. Although literature contains numerous studies that strive to propose solutions to this congestion problem, the problem is still prevalent today. Traffic congestion problem affects society’s quality of life socially, economically, and environmentally. In order to alleviate the unsustainable impacts of the congested roadway problem, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) has been utilized to improve sustainable transportation systems in the world. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the sustainable impacts and performance of the utilization of ITS in the United States. This thesis advances the body of knowledge of sustainability impacts of ITS related congestion relief through a triple bottom line (TBL) evaluation in the United States. TBL impacts analyze from a holistic perspective, rather than considering only the direct economic benefits. A critical approach to this research was to include both the direct and the indirect environmental and socio-economic impacts associated with the chain of supply paths of traffic congestion relief. To accomplish this aim, net benefits of ITS implementations are analyzed in 101 cities in the United States. In addition to the state level results, seven metropolitan cities in Florida are investigated in detail among these 101 cities. For instance, the results of this study indicated that Florida saved 1.38 E+05 tons of greenhouse gas emissions (tons of carbon dioxide equivalent), $420 million of annual delay reduction costs, and $17.2 million of net fuel-based costs. Furthermore, to quantify the relative impact and sustainability performance of different ITS technologies, several ITS solutions are analyzed in terms of total costs (initial and operation & maintenance costs) and benefits (value of time, emissions, and safety). To account for the uncertainty in benefit and cost ii analyses, a fuzzy-data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology is utilized instead of the traditional DEA approach for sustainability performance analysis. The results using the fuzzy-DEA approach indicate that some of the ITS investments are not efficient compared to other investments where as all of them are highly effective investments in terms of the cost/benefit ratios approach. The TBL results of this study provide more comprehensive picture of socio-economic benefits which include the negative and indirect indicators and environmental benefits for ITS related congestion relief. In addition, sustainability performance comparisons and TBL analysis of ITS investments contained encouraging results to support decision makers to pursue ITS projects in the future.

The overall goals of this dissertation are to investigate the sustainability of the built environment, holistically, by assessing its Triple Bottom Line (TBL): environmental, economic, and social impacts, as well as propose cost-effective, socially acceptable, and environmentally benign policies using several decision support models. This research is anticipated to transform life cycle assessment (LCA) of the built environment by using a TBL framework, integrated with economic input-output analysis, simulation, and multicriteria optimization tools. The major objectives of the outlined research are to (1) build a system-based TBL sustainability assessment framework for the sustainable built environment, by (a) advancing a national TBL-LCA model which is not available for the United States of America; (b) extending the integrated sustainability framework through environmental, economic, and social sustainability indicators; and (2) develop a systembased analysis toolbox for sustainable decisions including Monte Carlo simulation and multi-criteria compromise programming. When analyzing the total sustainability impacts by each U.S. construction sector, “Residential Permanent Single and Multi-Family Structures" and "Other Non-residential Structures" are found to have the highest environmental, economic, and social impacts compared to other construction sectors. The analysis results also show that indirect suppliers of construction sectors have the largest sustainability impacts compared to onsite activities. For example, for all U.S. construction sectors, on-site construction processes are found to be responsible for less than 5 % of total water consumption, whereas about 95 iv % of total water use can be attributed to indirect suppliers. In addition, Scope 3 emissions are responsible for the highest carbon emissions compared to Scope 1 and 2. Therefore, using narrowly defined system boundaries by ignoring supply chain-related impacts can result in underestimation of TBL sustainability impacts of the U.S. construction industry. Residential buildings have higher shares in the most of the sustainability impact categories compared to other construction sectors. Analysis results revealed that construction phase, electricity use, and commuting played important role in much of the sustainability impact categories. Natural gas and electricity consumption accounted for 72% and 78% of the total energy consumed in the U.S. residential buildings. Also, the electricity use was the most dominant component of the environmental impacts with more than 50% of greenhouse gases emitted and energy used through all life stages. Furthermore, electricity generation was responsible for 60% of the total water withdrawal of residential buildings, which was even greater than the direct water consumption in residential buildings. In addition, construction phase had the largest share in income category with 60% of the total income generated through residential building’s life cycle. Residential construction sector and its supply chain were responsible for 36% of the import, 40% of the gross operating surplus, and 50% of the gross domestic product. The most sensitive parameters were construction activities and its multiplier in most the sustainability impact categories. v In addition, several emerging pavement types are analyzed using a hybrid TBL-LCA framework. Warm-mix Asphalts (WMAs) did not perform better in terms of environmental impacts compared to Hot-mix Asphalt (HMA). Asphamin® WMA was found to have the highest environmental and socio-economic impacts compared to other pavement types. Material extractions and processing phase had the highest contribution to all environmental impact indicators that shows the importance of cleaner production strategies for pavement materials. Based on stochastic compromise programming results, in a balanced weighting situation, Sasobit® WMA had the highest percentage of allocation (61%), while only socio-economic aspects matter, Asphamin® WMA had the largest share (57%) among the WMA and HMA mixtures. The optimization results also supported the significance of an increased WMA use in the United States for sustainable pavement construction. Consequently, the outcomes of this dissertation will advance the state of the art in built environment sustainability research by investigating novel efficient methodologies capable of offering optimized policy recommendations by taking the TBL impacts of supply chain into account. It is expected that the results of this research would facilitate better sustainability decisions in the adoption of system-based TBL thinking in the construction field.

Purpose – This study aims to gain an increased understanding of how textile companies perceive opportunities and challenges in reducing microplastic shedding in the design process. Specifically, the thesis compares and analyses two distinct textile companies with diverse business approaches. Methodology – A qualitative research method was chosen to gain in-depth knowledge through semi-structured interviews, while a deductive approach was used to connect existing theories to practical implications. A thematic analysis was employed to systematically analyse the empirical data, aligning with the developed analysis model in the thesis. Findings – Based on the results, it indicates that the design process in the textile industry plays a crucial role in reducing microplastic emissions by enabling sustainable product design through material selection and considering the product's life cycle. However, challenges arise in selecting sustainable materials and implementing sustainable practices due to limited awareness, availability, and standardised measurement methods. Through a comparative analysis of two distinct companies, the study generates valuable insights and knowledge on how organisations can re-evaluate their methods, processes, and material selections to foster more sustainable design practices. Originality/value – This study enhances originality by examining and analysing the perspectives of Swedish textile companies regarding the opportunities and challenges associated with reducing microplastic emissions in the design process. By emphasising a pre-consumer stage in the textile value chain, the study departs from the traditional focus on post-consumer phases, thus addressing the microplastic issue from a new perspective. The findings of this study hold significance for both theoretical and practical realms by advancing an increased understanding of sustainable policies and practices aimed at reducing microplastic emissions in the textile industry.