Att vara lönsam är en förutsättning för företags långsiktiga överlevnad. Samtidigt blir det generellt sett allt hårdare konkurrens och antalet konkurrenter ökar ständigt. Företag behöver således hitta sätt för att kunna fortsätta vara konkurrenskraftiga på marknaden. Enligt resursbaserad teori kan företag inneha eller skapa resurser inom sin verksamhet som kan leda till varaktiga konkurrensfördelar, och som följaktligen är viktiga att identifiera och utnyttja på bästa sätt. En tillfällig konkurrensfördel anses vara värdefull, ovanlig samt icke utbytbar. För att resursen ska kunna anses vara varaktig ska den inte heller gå att imitera av konkurrenter. I denna rapport ligger fokus på hur företag inom dagligvaruhandeln försöker skapa varaktiga konkurrensfördelar genom arbetet med miljövänliga förpackningar. Miljövänliga förpackningar utgör en betydande del av branschens miljöpåverkan då dessa kännetecknas av hög omsättning och snabb förbrukning. Idag utgör egna varumärken allt större del av omsättningen bland företagen. Dessa varumärken har företagen självklart en betydande möjlighet att påverka, bland annat produktens egenskaper och inte minst dess förpackning. Denna studie bygger på intervjuer med respondenter från tre företag inom dagligvaruhandeln med varierande marknadsandelar. Studien visar att företagen arbetar med miljövänlig förpackningsutveckling på många sätt. Rapporten redogör för hur företagen arbetar för att effektivisera förpackningskedjan, utveckla förpackningar som minskar matsvinn samt hur samarbeten mellan förpackningskedjans användare ser ut och dess betydelse. Det diskuteras även huruvida åtgärderna syftar till att utveckla varaktiga konkurrensfördelar eller ej. Det beskrivs även hur företagen kommunicerar sitt arbete med miljövänliga förpackningar samt hur de strävar efter att utveckla förpackningsinnovationer.

Handel via internet har vuxit i rekordfart vilket har lett till fler hemleveranser och därmed fler transporter. Samtidigt ökar behovet av att minska konsumtionens klimatpåverkan. Symboler har varit ett frekvent använt verktyg för att förmedla produkters miljöpåverkan. Hur konsumenter anser att transportens miljöpåverkan sak kommuniceras är ännu ett outforskat område. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur e-handelskonsumenter anser att kommunikation av miljövänligare transport bör utformas för att det miljövänligare alternativet ska framstå som mer attraktivt. Vidare vill vi undersöka om det finns skillnader och likheter i frågan mellan konsumenter med olika karaktärsdrag och i sådana fall vilka skillnader och likheter. Denna kvantitativa studie antar en deduktiv ansats där undersökningen utformas med tidigare forskning som bakgrund. En tvärsnittsdesign ligger till grund för det empiriska materialet och urvalet är e-handelskonsumenter av dagligvaror. Studiens resultat visar att enligt konsumenterna ska kommunikationen av miljövänligare transport bestå av formatet symbol och informationen ska ta hänsyn till att de motiveras mest av att göra gott för omvärlden och miljön, att ta eget ansvar samt att förstå konsekvenserna av sina val. Det största hindret enligt konsumenterna är pris. Vidare upptäcktes vissa samband mellan konsumenternas karaktärsdrag och vilken kommunikation de anser gör den miljövänligare transporten mer attraktiv. / Introduction Online shopping has grown rapidly which has led to an increased home delivery transportation. At the same time, the importance of decreasing the climate impact from consumption is a fact. Symbols have been a popular tool to communicate the environmental impact of products. The consumers’ opinions regarding how the communication of environmentally friendly transports should be made, is still an unexplored area. Purpose The purpose of the study is to investigate how e-commerce consumers consider that communication of environmentally friendly transportation should be designed to make that option more attractive. Furthermore, we want to investigate whether there may be differences and similarities between consumers with different characteristics and, in such cases, which those are. Method This quantitative study has a deductive approach and the survey was designed upon a foundation of previous research. The empirical material consists of a survey where the selection was ecommerce consumers of groceries. Conclusion This study’s results show that, according to the consumers, communication of environmentally friendly transportation should consist of the format symbol and the information should consider that they are mostly motivated by doing good for their surrounding world, acting responsibly and understanding the consequences of their action. The largest obstacle for the consumers is the price. Furthermore, some relationships were identified between consumer characteristics and what type of communication they consider makes more environmentally friendly transport attractive.

Learning disability affects many learners in South Africa and its impact is exacerbated by environmental disadvantage. In a fast changing educational system within a framework of Outcomes-Based Education, where inclusion of learners from various cultures who face a wide variety of barriers to learning is a reality, the need for more accommodating teaching aids and techniques is pressing. Reading comprehension skills influence most aspects of school work, cognitively, emotionally and socially, and therefore learning support strategies to address reading difficulty are especially important. This research focused on visualization as a metacognitive reading comprehension technique for learning support to intermediate level learners with learning disabilities who suffer environmental deprivation. The aim was to help learners to develop and utilise their cognitive skills when reading by forming a mental picture of the text that is being read. Internalization and generalization of this technique was targeted. The communicative meaning of text, rather than fluent word recognition, was emphasized. Manifestations of learning disability, environmental deprivation, problems in reading comprehension and visualization as a "whole brain" approach to reading development were reviewed in the literature. In collaboration with a multicultural school for learners with epilepsy and learning disabilities, the visualization technique was formatively refined during ten sessions of practical implementation. Qualitative and quantitative techniques were used to assess behaviour and performance per learner. Clinical assessments verified the findings of the case studies. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

Products make substantial impact on environment. Design for Environment (DfE) is an approach to design where all the environmental impacts of a product are considered over entire products life. Since over 80% of the product costs are committed during the early stages, design can play a central role in reducing this environmental overloading by product. However, unlike cost and performance, use of environmental criteria and DfE is far from part of mainstream designing. Individual guidelines often exist for DfE but these are not integrated with design tools. There is a need for capture of the rationale in design process as a know how backup for later use. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is currently the most promising and scientifically proven technique for estimating environmental impacts of a product during its lifecycle. Current LCA tools are not well integrated with design process and CAD tools. Consequently, there is a need for an LCA tool integrated into the natural design process that can be applied to early as well as detailed design stages. Detailed LCA is critically dependent on high volumes of product specific data, time consuming, often unaffordable and used after the detailed stages of design. Current approximate LCA methods are either incomplete, inaccurate or require prior knowledge of what data is important There is substantial uncertainty involved in the environmental impact calculations in LC. While Literature discusses uncertainty of impact data, there is no discussion on how to calculate and represent the total uncertainty in the potential impact of a product proposal at any given stage in design with respect to LCA. There is a need for a method that can aid in decision making by supporting quantitative comparison of available alternatives to identify the best alternative, under uncertain information about alternatives. Often the likely performance, cost or environmental impacts of a product proposal could be estimated only with certain confidence, which may vary from one proposal to another. The overall objective of this thesis is to “Develop a support to the designers using which they can develop environmentally friendly product lifecycles in much the same way as they currently design products, at all stages of their design, while reusing information from their past design activities”. For this the specific objectives are to: 1.Understand how designers currently design products and what they need for developing environmentally friendly product design. 2.Develop a holistic framework for both generation and evaluation of environmentally friendly life cycle proposals. 3. Capture rationale as part of the design process. 4. Estimate uncertainty in the environmental impact assessment during design. 5. Evaluate product lifecycle proposals with multiple criteria under uncertainty. 6. Integrate design process with environmental impact assessment. 7. Apply environmental impact assessment through the design process. From the descriptive studies we found that there is substantial difference in the environmental impact among products having the same functionality generated during the same design process. Analysis of industrial products available in the market show similar results. This means that design can substantially affect the impact created by a product. In our studies, designers did not consider environmental impact as a criterion in evaluation and we also identified the typical activities performed by designers during An Interactive Support for Developing Environmentally Friendly Product Lifecycles designing that must be allowed, supported or taken into account while developing a support for environmentally friendly product lifecycle design (EFPLD). The requirements of the designer for support are: tools should be proactive, easy to learn, understand and use, allow understanding of design rationale, act as a checklist, reduce total time, store knowledge and experience as know‐how backup, useful in all stages of design, not require too much extra effort for analysis, integrated to CAD, aid in trade off between choices, show uncertainty analysis, aid in analysis & improvement, and consider all lifecycle phases. A holistic framework, ACLODS (is a acronym of the six dimensions) constituting the following six dimensions: a) Activities, b) Criteria, c) Lifecycle phases, d) Outcomes, e) Design stages, and f) Product Structure was proposed for development of environmentally friendly product lifecycle designs. Through descriptive studies we found mainly 4 categories and associated sub categories of uncertainty in information with respect to LCA in design. The four categories are uncertainty in product structure, lifecycle phases, data quality, and methodological choices. The sub categories are assemblies, sub- assemblies, parts, relations, and features in product structure, material, production, distribution, usage, and after‐usage in lifecycle phases, temporal relevance, spatial relevance and sample size in data quality, and temporal relevance, spatial relevance, and comprehensiveness in methodological choices. At any point of time, uncertainty in information available is an accrual of the combination of the individual uncertainties. A method called confidence weighted objectives method is developed to compare the whole lifecycle of product proposals using multiple evaluation criteria under various levels of uncertainty. It is compared with normal weighted objectives method and found to be better since it estimates the overall worth of proposal nd confidence on the estimate, enabling deferment of decision making when decisions cannot be made using current information available. A new integrated platform IDEA‐SUSTAIN is developed in this thesis for supporting synthesis in product development on a commercial CAD workspace, while also aiding automated capture and storage of the rationale behind the decisions for retrieval whenever required during design. It is extended to support life cycle assessment of product proposals created by automatically extracting the information already stored while designing and ask for other information required to model the lifecycle without much extra effort from the designer. Then it uses the method for uncertainty reasoning developed also as a part of this research to estimate the level of confidence on the impact value owing to the incompleteness in knowledge available. The estimation is possible at part, assembly or product levels, for a single lifecycle phase or multiple phases. Using in‐house design exercises and feedback questionnaire evaluation of support is done. The usage of Idea‐Sustain has been found to be the best for both generation and evaluation of product proposals. The two computer aided tools – software (LCA) and Idea-Sustain-are compared with each other for fulfilling the functional requirements by analysing the feedbacks given by the designers on these tools against these requirements. Idea‐Sustain fulfilled well most of the requirements while the software (LCA) fulfilled only some of the needs, that too less effectively.

By measuring intentions to purchase, this research gives insight into environmental attitudes, pressures to purchase environmentally friendly apparel, factors that inhibit environmentally friendly apparel purchasing, awareness of environmentally friendly apparel purchase options, and marketing insight into the eco-friendly consumer. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used to assess consumer purchasing intentions for environmentally friendly apparel. The TPB consists of a three-pronged measurement: individual attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Individual attitudes were gauged on three dimensions which included environmental attitudes, demographic patterns, and environmentally friendly apparel purchase intentions. Subjective norms involve social pressure to engage in eco-friendly behavior, perceived individual environmental impact, and desire for uniqueness in dress. Finally, perceived behavioral control was studied through previous environmentally friendly apparel purchases, accessibility of environmentally friendly apparel purchase options, and cost of environmentally friendly apparel. The results revealed that individual environmental attitudes, social pressure to behave environmentally friendly, perceived individual environmental impact, desire for uniqueness in dress, past environmentally friendly apparel purchases, accessibility of environmentally friendly apparel purchase options, and cost of environmentally friendly apparel all have an impact on intentions to purchase environmentally friendly apparel. The variable with the strongest relationship to intentions was social pressure. A demographic profile of intent to purchase environmentally friendly apparel, however, was not possible with this sample. This indicates there is not specifically one type of person who purchases environmentally friendly apparel.

Subtitle D of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) requires a post closure period of 30 years for non hazardous wastes in landfills. Post closure care (PCC) activities under Subtitle D include leachate collection and treatment, groundwater monitoring, inspection and maintenance of the final cover, and monitoring to ensure that landfill gas does not migrate off site or into on site buildings. The decision to reduce PCC duration requires exploration of a performance based methodology to Florida landfills. PCC should be based on whether the landfill is a threat to human health or the environment. Historically no risk based procedure has been available to establish an early end to PCC. Landfill stability depends on a number of factors that include variables that relate to operations both before and after the closure of a landfill cell. Therefore, PCC decisions should be based on location specific factors, operational factors, design factors, post closure performance, end use, and risk analysis. The question of appropriate PCC period for Florida’s landfills requires in depth case studies focusing on the analysis of the performance data from closed landfills in Florida. Based on data availability, Davie Landfill was identified as case study site for a case by case analysis of landfill stability. The performance based PCC decision system developed by Geosyntec Consultants was used for the assessment of site conditions to project PCC needs. The available data for leachate and gas quantity and quality, ground water quality, and cap conditions were evaluated. The quality and quantity data for leachate and gas were analyzed to project the levels of pollutants in leachate and groundwater in reference to maximum contaminant level (MCL). In addition, the projected amount of gas quantity was estimated. A set of contaminants (including metals and organics) were identified as contaminants detected in groundwater for health risk assessment. These contaminants were selected based on their detection frequency and levels in leachate and ground water; and their historical and projected trends. During the evaluations a range of discrepancies and problems that related to the collection and documentation were encountered and possible solutions made. Based on the results of PCC performance integrated with risk assessment, projection of future PCC monitoring needs and sustainable waste management options were identified. According to these results, landfill gas monitoring can be terminated, leachate and groundwater monitoring for parameters above MCL and surveying of the cap integrity should be continued. The parameters which cause longer monitoring periods can be eliminated for the future sustainable landfills. As a conclusion, 30 year PCC period can be reduced for some of the landfill components based on their potential impacts to human health and environment (HH&E).

The present work intends to discuss the implementation of residential clusters inside the environmentally protected area of the Mantiqueira Mountain in the Paraiba Valley, state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. With a brief history of Sao Paulos and Rios urban evolution, this paper deals with the influence of the urban expansion towards environmentally protected areas in the region of the Paraiba Valley. The Industrial development in Sao Paulos metropolitan area and in the Paraiba Valley brought about with the globalized society has created problems in the region with increasing urban expansion and population growth associated with the need for environmental protection. The methodology adopted in this work is the case study of the residential area called Estância das Águas Claras, close to Pindamonhangabas outskirts and the environmentally protected area of the Mantiqueira Mountain.In applying a classical planning methodology (survey, analysis and evaluation), one conclusion is that neither the government nor the society are succeeding in preventing the development of condominium and residential clusters within the limits of the environmentally protected area, therefore pointing to the fact that a management plan is needed to accommodate uses and possible occupations to respond to societys present demands and the need to preserve the nature. / O presente estudo propõe estudar e identificar a expansão da malha urbana das cidades do Vale do Paraíba onde a periferia esteja atingindo a Unidade de Conservação da Serra da Mantiqueira com a implantação de loteamentos clandestinos. Discutir a pertinência ou não de ocupação para moradia de alta renda, respeitando as condições de localização e a tipologia do lote e habitação em subzonas na área de amortecimento previstas no plano de manejo da APA. Com um breve histórico da evolução urbana das cidades de São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro, este trabalho aborda a influência destas cidades pólos no desenvolvimento urbano, social e econômico da região do Vale do Paraíba. O desenvolvimento industrial na grande São Paulo e na região do Vale traz a tona a sociedade globalizada que convive simultaneamente com os problemas gerados no desenfreado crescimento urbano e populacional das cidades e a falta de atenção do poder público nas questões e nas conseqüentes intervenções nas áreas de preservação ambiental. A metodologia utilizada para realização deste trabalho é o estudo de caso do Condomínio Residencial Estância das Águas Claras, próximo a periferia da cidade de Pindamonhangaba junto a APA da Serra da Mantiqueira. Com a metodologia clássica (levantamento, análise e avaliação), conclui-se que nada poderá ser feito nem pelo poder público ou pela sociedade civil para deter a implantação de condomínios e bairros residenciais se não houver um plano de manejo para zonear a área de amortecimento da APA da Serra da Mantiqueira.

Submitted by Nadir Basilio (nadirsb@uninove.br) on 2016-06-21T18:22:25Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Thiago Chiorino Costa.pdf: 1489309 bytes, checksum: 9ee4e4c2c88d14a0ad4d485f65360126 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-21T18:22:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Thiago Chiorino Costa.pdf: 1489309 bytes, checksum: 9ee4e4c2c88d14a0ad4d485f65360126 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-16 / This study aims to investigate the relationship of personality traits with individuals’ environmentally responsible attitudes. Was investigated altruistic and materialistic characteristics to see if, in fact, such characteristics can explain attitudes that generate lower impact on the environment. Also, was considered, once it is a behavioral research, the bias caused by social desirability, or, in other words, the fact that individuals express their opinions or attitudes according the expected behavior of society, and not according to their reality. To achieve the objectives of this study, scales were used to measure the constructs involved and used the structural equation modeling as a method of analysis. The sample consisted of 339 individuals responsible for their personal or family purchases. It is concluded that the altruistic and materialistic characteristics of individuals explain, in part, their attitudes and how these can be supported by environmental considerations or motivations. It was found that altruism is directly and positively related to environmentally responsible attiudes, while materialism is directly, but negatively related to environmentally responsible attitudes. This study, as well as contributing to the theories related to consumer behavior and the study of sustainability, specifically with regard to environmentally responsible consumption habits, also includes contributions to the business practice. Companies must better understand their customers and their behavior so as to adapt or create new products or businesses to better satisfy them and also minimize the impact on the environment caused in the consumption and post-consumption stages of their products. / O presente trabalho tem como objetivo investigar as relações dos traços de personalidade com as atitudes ambientalmente responsáveis dos indivíduos. Investigou-se características altruístas e materialistas para constatar se tais características de fato podem explicar atitudes que levem em consideração a geração de menor impacto ao meio ambiente. Também considerou-se, por tratar-se de uma pesquisa comportamental, o viés ocasionado pela desejabilidade social, ou seja, pelo fato de os indivíduos expressarem suas opiniões ou atitudes de acordo o comportamento esperado da sociedade, e não de acordo com a sua realidade. Para alcançar os objetivos deste estudo, foram utilizadas escalas para mensuração dos construtos envolvidos e, como método de análise, utilizou-se a Modelagem de Equações Estruturais. A amostra foi composta por 339 indivíduos, responsáveis por suas compras pessoais e/ou de suas famílias. Conclui-se que as características altruístas e materialistas dos indivíduos explicam, em partes, as suas atitudes e como estas podem estar sustentadas por preocupações ou motivações ambientais. Constatou-se que o altruísmo está direta e positivamente relacionado com atitudes ambientalmente responsáveis, enquanto o materialismo está direta, porém, negativamente relacionado com atitudes ambientalmente responsáveis. Tal estudo, além de contribuir com as teorias relacionadas ao comportamento do consumidor e ao estudo da sustentabilidade, mais especificamente no que diz respeito aos hábitos de consumo ambientalmente responsáveis, também traz contribuições para a prática empresarial. As empresas devem entender melhor seus consumidores e seus respectivos comportamentos para assim adaptar ou criar novos produtos ou negócios para melhor satisfazê-los e, ainda, minimizar os impactos no meio ambiente ocasionados nas etapas de consumo e pós-consumo de seus produtos.

The development of social media has lead to major changes in marketing. Today, there are so called influencers who through their social channels can convey advertising to its followers. When an influencer publishes advertising material, they often contain an offer, and it is not uncommon for these offers to be limited in time, meaning the offer is only available for a certain period of time. With this development, there is also an increasing focus on the environment, sustainable development and consumers' responsibility in counteracting negative environmental effects, for example as a result of consumption. Based on this background, the purpose was designed to find out to what extent environmentally sustainable consumers are affected by time-limited offers that are marketed by influencers on Instagram. Environmentally sustainable consumers have been defined in the study as people who have a negative view of consumption. For this purpose three research questions were created which were examined in a survey. The respondents' answers were tested by regression analyzes. The results showed acceptance of all hypotheses. 1) Time-limited offers published by influences on Instagram lead to increased consumption, 2) an environmentally sustainable attitude has a negative effect on consumption and 3) time-limited offers published by influencers on Instagram lead to a negative effect on consumption, when the consumer has an environmentally sustainable attitude. The results of the study can then be related to several different theories from previous research, such as impulse buying, stimuli, collectivism /individualism, the SOR-model, the source credibility theory and halo effect theory. The study contributes to a greater understanding of consumers' relationship with an environmentally sustainable attitude to time-limited offers, which are published by influencers on Instagram. The result can be useful for companies that work with influencers when designing time limited offers. (This paper is written in Swedish) / Sociala mediers framväxt har fört med sig stora förändringar avseende marknadsföring. Idag finns så kallade influencers som genom sina sociala kanaler kan förmedla reklam till sinaföljare. När en influencer publicerar reklaminlägg innehåller dem ofta något erbjudande och det är inte ovanligt att dessa erbjudanden är tidsbegränsade, det vill säga att erbjudandet endast finns tillgängligt under en bestämd tidsperiod. I takt med denna utveckling riktas också allt mer fokus på miljö, hållbar utveckling och konsumenters ansvar i att motverka negativa miljöeffekter till följd av exempelvis konsumtion. Mot denna bakgrund utformades syftet som var att ta reda på i vilken grad miljömässigt hållbara konsumenter påverkas av tidsbegränsadeerbjudanden som marknadsförs av influencers på Instagram. Miljömässigt hållbara konsumenter har i studien definierats som personer som har en negativ syn på konsumtion. Till syftet formulerades tre frågeställningar som undersöktes i en enkätundersökning. Respondenternas svar redovisades genom regressionsanalyser. Resultatet visade acceptans för samtliga hypoteser. 1) Tidsbegränsade erbjudanden utgivna av influencers på Instagram leder till ökad konsumtion, 2) en miljömässigt hållbar inställning har en negativ effekt på konsumtion och 3) tidsbegränsade erbjudanden utgivna av influencers på Instagram leder till en negativ effekt på konsumtion, när konsumenten har en miljömässigt hållbar inställning. Studiens resultat kunde därefter relateras till flera olika teorier från tidigare forskning som exempelvis impulsköp, stimuli, kollektivism/ individualism, SOR-modellen, source credibility theory och halo effect theory. Studien bidrar till en större förståelse för vilken relation konsumenter med en miljömässigt hållbar inställning har till tidsbegränsadeerbjudanden, som är utgivna av influencers på Instagram. Resultatet kan tänkas vara användbart för företag, som arbetar med influencers, vid utformning av tidsbegränsadeerbjudanden.

In this study, attitudes and perceived implications for quality of life of environmentalists were explored, with a specific focus on the domestic use of renewable energy sources. A systems theoretical approach was followed in conjunction with a qualitative methodology in order to place the attitudes and perceived implications for quality of life in context with the systems in which they exist. The in-depth data that was collected by means of face-to-face interviews was analysed in a qualitative and systems theoretical framework. The three stages of analysis of the data are described and this culminates in a discussion of the six identified pattern categories. The conceptual discussion that follows are based on these six pattern categories. The participants' learned attitude toward the environment, the role of responsibility and its influence on perceived quality of life, risk perception as inhibitor of action, renewable energy and the perception of self, renewable energy as available medium and the possibility of change of attitude toward renewable energy sources are discussed in depth. The interaction between the energy-consumer system and the energy-environment system is explored and placed within the larger context. The recognition of a difference in a system, the interactive parts thereof, the transactional process between the systems and the collateral energy added by either or both of the systems, transactional processes and the required feedback loops, the difference that makes a difference and the description of transformation processes expose a hierarchy of logical types inherent in the system. / Dissertation (MA (Research Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Psychology / MA (Research Psychology) / unrestricted