Energy efficiency within the transport sector - A case study on the vehicle fleet of a companyIsak EklövThe environmental objective of zero net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2045 asdecided by the Swedish parliament establishes a framework for a standard thatimplies a demand for considerable changes within many sectors at both technical and political level. The need for long term efficiency solutions with respect tosustainability to be able to reach this goal is great and one step towards this couldpotentially be an adaption to an increased amount of vehicles with alternative fuelsin the vehicle fleet of Sweden. This thesis examined the potential for companiesto reduce their life-cycle emissions of greenhouse gases as well as the total cost ofownership (TCO) for their vehicles by changing the composition of their vehiclefleet.The project started with a literature review of a general character where data forlife-cycle emissions of greenhouse gases as well as TCO for different vehicle typeswas examined and collected. Then the life-cycle emissions of greenhouse gases andTCO were calculated for the different vehicle types through a case study on thevehicle fleet of a company. Finally a programming script was developed to increasethe efficiency of the process which was then used to create scenarios with differentcompositions of the vehicle fleet. A sensitivity analysis was also carried out to evaluate the robustness of the life cycle calculations where the parameters individuallywere altered and the effect on the final result was examined.The result of the case study showed that alternative fueled vehicles are expected tolead to lower life-cycle emissions of greenhouse gases compared to the conventionalalternatives for all vehicle types where alternative fuels are commercially available.The only exception for this was the electric fringe benefit vehicle with a 100 kWhbattery which was expected to lead to higher life-cycle emissions than its fossilalternatives. The result of the cost analysis showed a similar pattern but in thiscase the service vehicle fueled with gas was expected to lead to a higher value ofTCO than its fossil alternatives. The sensitivity analysis for life-cycle emissionsof greenhouse gases showed that production of lithium-ion batteries, vehicle base production and tailpipe emissions were the most contributing parameters forfringe benefit vehicles. The purchase cost was found to be the most contributingparameter for TCO.The result of the scenario analysis showed that there is a potential to decreaseiiilife-cycle emissions of greenhouse gases by 22 % of the total life-cycle emissionsfor the vehicle fleet according to the Base-case scenario. The potential to decreaseTCO was found to be 1,1 %. The other scenarios showed a potential decrease forlife-cycle emissions of 37 % and a cost decrease of 7 % individually.Key words: greenhouse gas emissions, alternative fuels, electric vehicles, totalcost of ownership, life cycle assessment, sustainable vehicle fleet

This study aims to understand and assess the diffusion and adoption of RES forenhanced societal wellbeing in developing countries. Furthermore, the purpose is tocontribute to a deeper understanding of the drivers and barriers (D&B) to the diffusionand adoption of RES among smallholders in rural Tanzania. The study onlyinvestigated solar energy lamps and not all products within the scope of RE. This wasto draw a more accurate and relevant conclusion from the empirical study. The study took place in Handeni, Tanzania, from March to May 2022. The primarydata for the study was collected through observations and twenty semi-structuredinterviews in four different villages in Handeni's Rural district. The data sets wereanalyzed through a thematic analysis to identify which D&B the smallholders werefacing regarding the adoption of solar energy lamps. These D&B were later furtheranalyzed with the help of the secondary data from literature studies, where theDiffusion of innovations theory and the Sustainable livelihoods approach were themain theories used. Barriers to adopting solar energy lamps were identified as; knowledge, trust, economy,and accessibility. Driving forces for wanting a solar energy lamp were; the reduced riskof health problems, reduced risk for accidents, portability, facilitating householdactivities, no variable costs, and the possibility to study and work at night. Otherfindings were the need for payment plans, charging on cloudy days, and batteriesthrown in nature. By connecting the drivers with elements from DOI, it was concluded that adoptiononly occurred in households where the driving forces were stronger than the barriers.Furthermore, an assessment of smallholders' wellbeing through the five capitals ofSLA discovered that financial, human, and physical capital were considered low in thestudied area. By bridging the gap between barriers and end-user, an increased diffusionand adoption of RES could occur, raising the capital assets identified as low. This risein the smallholders' low capital assets could push the transformation towardsustainability and enhance societal wellbeing in developing countries. The contribution from this study can hopefully be used for future research on howorganizations in practice can implement presented solutions. Furthermore, the study'sfindings can also provide guidelines on how the diffusion and adoption of RES can beincreased in rural areas of other developing countries. / Minor field studies

Nature-based Solutions (NBS) are currently considered among the most effective tools available to city administrations and urban planners to tackle the negative effects of climate change.This umbrella concept comprises a large set of different low-impact technical solutions that are inspired/supported, or copied, from nature. NBS are particularly valued as they can help cities foster sustainability and enhance resilience, while providing social benefits and new economic opportunities. NBShave been selected as a priority by the European Commission.Existing literature does not provide a clear, unique definition of NBS nor sufficient empirical support to demonstrate long-term change in communities and affected territories, particularly for participatory actions, as these are often difficult to analyse, measure, and assess. Adapting NBS-based strategies to local contexts is always a challenge – not only in terms of physical interventions, but particularly in terms of creating common understanding and long-term impact. Yet, dissemination activities, exchanges and debates across local and global actors are often considered as ‘collateral’.Starting from these premises, the study investigates the role of communication across local and global networks in NBS projects to explore which elements favour or hinder collaboration and knowledge creation, looking for possible seeds of transformation that might go undetected due to their intangible, non-quantifiable nature.Through a case study and a set of qualitative interviews, the challenges of understanding and adopting NBS will be tackled among the local and the global, revealing the importance of transdisciplinarity and a set of enabling conditions to facilitate transformative learning, and the role of flexible, adaptable participatory approaches to enhance collaborative open innovation. Possible ways forward and challenges towards forms of participatory governance will also be included.The analysis is clustered per themes to investigate the dynamics of dissemination activities, living lab settings and collaboration among international partners, as well as the overall influence of the European dimension; it ends with challenges and opportunities for the future of living labs and collaboration after the closure of the project. Meaningful examples and best practices shared by the2interviewees will guide the analysis. Additional topics and concerns as expressed freely by the participants will be outlined.As outlined in the closing section, reiteration of concepts and multiple opportunities to learn, experience and exchange about NBS are needed at local and global level. To support such collaborative effort, it takes one or more skilled facilitators as well as project frameworks to enable cross-sectoral collaboration and spontaneous inputs, towards innovative, long-lasting strategies to contribute in the global battle against climate change in cities.In the conclusions, through experiences and suggestions from the participants, possible strategies and actions will be reported, inviting for further transdisciplinary research by highlighting how intangible and practical items contribute to nature-based thinking. As to say: “to be inspired by natural processes in all aspects of urban development to create more holistic approaches to sustainable cities'' (Randrup, et al., 2020, p. 2).

Climate change litigation is expanding at fast speed throughout various jurisdictions around the world. Citizens are taking states’ lack of climate mitigation measures to courts, demanding that more has to be done on the climate crisis. More often now, litigants use human rights based argumentation which relies on international human rights law: human rights treaties, conventions, and precedent from human rights courts. According to litigants, states are therefore seen as both creating and prolonging this threat against the lives of their citizens, violating some of their most basic human rights, such as the right to life. Coupling these human rights obligations with climate treaties such as the Paris Agreement has proven effective when attempting to establish a causal connection between state emissions and climate change’s threat to citizen’s lives. This is sometimes characterized as a global ‘rights turn’ or a ‘greening’ of human rights. While a climate litigation case was denied to be brought up in Swedish courts in 2016, the Swedish government is now in 2021 finding itself tested again. Several children and youths in Sweden are currently suing the Swedish state, claiming that Sweden does not live up to its international human rights obligations. The claim is based on a human rights framing and is more similar to other ongoing or successful climate litigation cases at present time. While also facing a lawsuit as defendants in a case under the European Court of Human Rights, Sweden is now finding itself in the midst of this new phenomenon. Since, however, the issue of climate litigation in Swedish courts is quite new, the results of a new case in Sweden based on different grounds and on the precedent established in other successful cases in other similar jurisdictions, could be different.  The overall purpose of this thesis is to shed light on the intentional human rights obligations that the Swedish state is bound by internationally which can be used in a climate litigation case based on human rights argumentation. The issue at hand is therefore to ascertain what, how and why those obligations concerning the climate and human rights makes it possible or challenging to pursue a case against the Swedish government, and what these obligations entail. If the case is tried in Swedish courts, it will establish the current obligations concerning climate change and its threat to human lives under international human rights law, as well as Sweden’s mitigation duties.

Climate Science Communication is an important tool for helping organizations set strategies to reduce their climate impact. As a major contributor to global climate warming emissions, the food industry needs to take stronger action to reduce their climate impact if the world wants to achieve the global climate goals committed to in the 2015 Paris Agreement. To ensure they meet the climate commitments in their Corporate Social Responsibility strategies, corporations in the food industry should use science-based targets, which research shows are more effective and ambitious. Through the context of Sweden, a country which has set strong emissions reduction policy, this thesis investigates the role that Climate Science Communication and stakeholder communication play in the actions that corporations in the food industry are taking to help achieve the global climate goals. This qualitative study analyzes the firsthand accounts of ten professionals across the food, science communications, and science research industries. Interviews with the participants explore stakeholder management in science communication, the role of collaboration within the science and food industries, and what gaps they see between the science community and the food industry when establishing corporate climate strategies. Results suggest that there is a necessary, and often missing, link between the food industry’s climate strategies and the climate research that informs them. Using principles from Stakeholder Theory, Communications Accommodation Theory, and Cross-Sector Collaboration can help bridge this gap. Improved stakeholder collaboration, better efforts to help decision makers understand climate science, changes to corporate behaviors, and systemic changes in both the corporate world and academia can improve the relationship between the science community and food industry, leading to more effective and impactful climate strategies and results.

Jordbruket står inför många utmaningar. Grödorna behöver bland annat anpassas till ett förändrat klimat. Här är grödornas vilda släktingar, kulturväxtsläktingar viktiga, då de bär på stor genetisk variation. För att kulturväxtsläktingarna ska kunna användas i arbetet med att anpassa och utveckla dagens grödor är det av största vikt att de bevaras. Denna litteraturstudie syftar till att göra en kartläggning av bevarandearbetet som gjorts och behöver göras samt presentera Sveriges bevarandearbete. Litteraturstudien visar att flera internationella konventioner, bevarandestrategier och samarbeten har haft betydelse för bevarandearbetet. Vissa stora fröinsamlingsprojekt har gjorts och på vissa platser har skyddade områden för kulturväxtsläktingar upprättats. Dock krävs fortfarande ett omfattande bevarandearbete. Planer måste omsättas i praktiken, projekt finansieras och politiskt engagemang öka. I Sverige är arbetet på ett tidigt stadie, men vissa framsteg har gjorts och arbete pågår. Att öka kännedomen om kulturväxtsläktingar kan vara ett sätt att ge bevarandearbetet högre status och mer resurser. Där kan biologilärare göra en viktig insats genom att inkludera kulturväxtsläktingar och dess betydelse i undervisningen, till exempel att eleverna får arbeta med frågor om hur framtidens mattillgång kan säkras. / Agriculture is facing several great challenges. The crops need, among other things, to be adapted to a changing climate. Here, the wild relatives of the crops, the crop wild relatives, are important since they carry a vast amount of genetic diversity. For the crop wild relatives to be used in the process of adapting and improving today’s crops, it is essential that they are conserved. This literature review aims to make a survey of the previous conservation efforts and the work that remains, as well as presenting the conservation efforts in Sweden. The review shows that several international conventions, conservation strategies, and collaborations have been significant for the conservation efforts. Some large seed collecting projects have been completed and, in some places, protected areas for crop wild relatives have been established. However, extensive conservation efforts are still required. Plans need to be actualized, projects funded, and political incentive increased. The Swedish conservation efforts are still at an early stage, but some progress has been made and work is in ongoing. Increasing awareness about crop wild relatives could result in their conservation receiving a higher status and increased funds. Biology teachers can make an important contribution to this by including crop wild relatives and their significance in class, for example by letting students work with questions concerning the security of the futures food production.

In the past decades, there has been an alarming increase in the amount of toxicity on earthdue to pollution and consumerism and the natural environment is faster than everdisappearing due to the extensive activity of humans on planet earth (Nations United,2020; United Nations, 2020). The increased amount of rubbish and non-natural waste hasbeen identified as a major issue in the supply chain and waste management inhumanitarian organizations across the board. This thesis has reviewed existing academic research and identified the five commonthemes: Management – training and standardization – stakeholders and donors -transparency - climate change and development, in which the ability to become moresustainable is present. United States Agency for International Development (USAID) hasbeen showing environmental accountability and for that reason, its environmental policyand supply chain have been addressed to understand its waste management and if it issupporting the three sustainable dimensions. Plastic pollution is addressed as a humanitarian crisis and arguing that the devastatingeffects that microplastics are having on our ecosystem and it is clearly showing that it iscausing harm to the environment, the economy, and the social effect. Haiti has since theearthquake in 2010 received a variety of aid, majority from USAID but the sustainableaccountability in their action have been hard to identify. Reviewing the work of USAID and their collaboration with environmental protectioncompanies makes you likely to say that they are supporting the three sustainabledimensions but with further assessment, it is obvious, that humanitarian waste is doingharm and there must be improvements within the organization’s perspective onwaste/plastic while attending a crisis.

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How does the international climate policy frameworks influence the domestic institutional responses to climate mitigation in emerging economies? And how, in turn, do domestic institutions and politics in emerging economies influence the fate of international climate policy frameworks? The thesis provides answers to these questions by studying domestic engagements with Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions in three emerging economies – India, Brazil, and South Africa. The thesis specifically studies how these engagements were influenced by the domestic institutional context provided by national climate policy, norms, and institutional capacity in the three countries. Drawing upon the variations in the engagements with nationally appropriate mitigation actions, made visible by use of the policy cycle as a heuristic device, the thesis informs the implementation of another nascent, yet prevalent, international climate policy framework – Nationally Determined Contributions. The thesis identifies how engagements with nationally appropriate mitigation actions varied in India, Brazil, and South Africa in agenda-setting, policy formulation, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation. In cases where international support is considered crucial for taking mitigation actions, external factors such as lack of clarity on definitional aspects and availability of international support can hamper the prospects of such frameworks at the agenda-setting and policy formulation stages. Efforts to engage with these frameworks under this uncertainty are held back by non-decisions, overriding national climate policy, as well as by uneven inter-ministerial coordination. The thesis argues that successful implementation of upcoming Nationally Determined  Contributions will be influenced by a country’s ability to align them with its national climate policy, localization of the transnational norms, and the extent to which efforts to enhance institutional capacity for  coordinating the implementation of national climate policy are made. In sum, the effective implementation of International Climate Policy Frameworks will be dependent on the willingness of the state to  provide oversight and coordination, and clarity on the availability of international support. / Hur influerar ramverken för internationell klimatpolicy nationella institutionella åtgärder för att begränsa utsläpp av växthusgaser i framväxande ekonomier? Och hur påverkar, i sin tur, dessa länders nationella institutioner och politik dessa ramverk för internationell klimatpolicy? Denna avhandling studerar nationella engagemang i Nationellt lämpliga utsläppsminskande åtgärder (s.k. NAMAs) i tre framväxande ekonomier – Indien, Brasilien, och Sydafrika. Avhandlingen studerar i synnerhet hur dessa engagemang har påverkats av de tre ländernas nationella klimatpolicy, normer, och institutionella kapacitet. Genom att använda policycykeln som heuristiskt analysverktyg identifierar avhandlingen variationer i hur länderna utvecklat sitt engagemang i NAMAs. Avhandlingen visar att och hur engagemang med nationellt lämpliga utsläppsminskande åtgärder varierar mellan Indien, Brasilien, och Sydafrika vad det gäller fastställande av dagordning, policyformulering, beslutsfattande, implementering, och policyutvärdering. I de fall internationellt stöd anses vara avgörande för att vidta utsläppsminskande åtgärder kan externa faktorer såsom bristande definition av de internationella policyramverken för åtgärder samt tillgänglighet på internationellt stöd försvåra utsikterna för att internationella ramverk tas upp i de nationella dagordnings- och policyformuleringsstadierna. Arbetet med dessa ramverk försvåras även av icke-beslut och ojämn interministeriell koordinering samt om tvingande nationell klimatpolicy inte ligger i linje med de internationella besluten. Avhandlingens slutsatser har betydelse för implementeringen av ett annat framväxande ramverk för internationell klimatpolicy: Nationellt fastställda bidrag (s.k. NDC:er). En framgångsrik implementering av   NDC:er kommer att influeras av en stats förmåga att anpassa dem till nationell klimatpolicy samt transnationella normer, så att dessa överensstämmer eller jämkas med nationella normer, samt den institutionella kapaciteten för att koordinera implementering av nationell klimatpolicy. En effektiv implementering av ramverk för internationell klimatpolicy kommer, sammanfattningsvis, att vara beroende av staters villighet att tillhandahålla tillsyn och koordinering, samt tydlighet vad gäller tillgänglighet till internationellt stöd.

Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie är att genom fokusgruppintervjuer undersöka vad elever i årskurserna 5-6 kan och  resonerar om begreppen källsortering, nedskräpning och miljöförstöring Studien tar upp hur hållbar utveckling är upplagt i läroplanens inledande delar och kursplaner, hur de tre dimensionerna av hållbarhet definieras samt tidigare forskning inom ämnet. I det resultat som visualiseras framkom det hur 20 elever på en Grön Flaggskola och en icke Grön Flaggskola ser på nedskräpning och källsortering. Undersökningens resultat indikerar att eleverna är väl insatta i dagens miljöproblem och de vet hur de ska motverka dessa. Anmärkningsvärt visade eleverna på Grön Flaggskolan inte mer kunskap om till exempel hållbarhet. Dock påvisas det att majoriteten av eleverna på båda skolorna innehar en nonchalant inställning till problemen, lägger dessa på andra individer och skjuter problemen framför sig. I studien framförs slutligen en diskussion om införandet av ett nytt ämne i läroplanen, vem som bär ansvaret och hur lärarna kan engagera sina elever att arbeta för en bättre planet. / The purpose of this qualitative study is, through focus group interviews investigate what pupils in grades 5-6 can and reason about waste sorting, littering and pollutions. The study examines how sustainable development is presented in the curriculum's introductory parts and curricula, how the three dimensions of sustainability are defined and previous research within the subject. The result that emerged visualizes how 20 pupils at an Eco-School and a non-Eco-school look at littering and sorting waste. The results of the survey indicate that the pupils are well acquainted with today's environmental problems, and they know how to counteract with these. The pupils on the Eco School did remarkably not show more knowledge about for example sustainability. However, it is demonstrated that the majority of the pupils at both schools hold a nonchalant approach to the problems, place these on other individuals and postpone the problems before them. Finally, the study discusses the introduction of a new topic in the curriculum, who carries the responsibility and how the teachers can engage their students to work for a better planet.