The purpose of this thesis is to examine the use of certified green labelling together with green labelling created by companies themselves, as a tool within green marketing communication to create credibility for green products. A focus has been placed on department stores within the retail sector. This thesis is a qualitative study conducted in an approach where induction and deduction have been combined. Data has mainly been collected by performing 10 semi-structured interviews with company representatives and experts within the chosen subject and industry. This study clearly shows that the perception of the use of both certified green labelling and green labels created by companies themselves, as a green marketing communication tool, is positive. However, the green labelling created by companies is preferred above certified green labelling for this purpose. The result of this study also shows very clearly that all three parts of the 3Cs´ principle are of importance to create an effective green marketing communication, and that green labelling, both of the earlier mentioned types, can be an effective tool to achieve this. Thus, it is of importance that the identified risks connected to the use of green labelling are minimized. / Denna uppsats är skriven ur ett företagsperspektiv och berör bruket av egna och certifierade gröna märkningar samt dess positiva och negativa aspekter i egenskap av kommunikationsverktyg för att skapa trovärdighet för gröna produkter. Ett fokus har lagts på övrig sällanköpshandel.   En kombination av induktiv och deduktiv forskningsansats tillsammans med en kvalitativ undersökningsmetod har använts till denna uppsats. Data har främst samlats in genom tio semistrukturerade intervjuer med företagsrepresentanter och experter inom den valda branschen och ämnet.   Denna studie visar tydligt att uppfattningen gällande bruket av både egna och certifierade gröna märkningar är positiv ur en kommunikationssynpunkt, men att de undersökta företagen föredrar egna gröna märkningar i detta syfte. I studien har det även tydligt framkommit att samtliga tre delar av 3C-principen är av vikt för att skapa en effektiv grön marknadskommunikation, och att gröna märkningar kan vara ett effektivt sätt för att uppnå detta. Dock behöver de identifierade riskerna kopplade till användningen av gröna märkningar minimeras och förslag hur detta kan göras har kunnat presenteras.

Climate change has become a widely discussed topic in many regions of the society. Green IT can be seen as part of the solution to this problem and can be defined as practices that work to improve the phases of design, production and usage of IT hardware, software and communication systems to effectively and efficiently use IT as a tool in the business, with minimal effect on the environment and promoting sustainability. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if the Balanced Scorecard model has to be adapted and can be used to find objectives that can aid the implementation of Green IT. This was done by using an inductive approach to find Green IT practices through secondary data and with semi-structured interviews with four Swedish companies. From the interviews, several Green IT practices and drivers were established. The drivers allowed the authors to determine that the Balanced Scorecard’s perspectives did not have to be adapted to fit a Green IT Strategy. The Green IT practices were transformed into initiatives that formed the basis for several Green IT objectives. Each objective individually fit into the four original perspectives of the Balanced Scorecard. These objectives, including initiatives, were the building blocks for the final Green IT Balanced Scorecard.

The interest in machine learning algorithms is increasing, in parallel with the advancements in hardware and software required to mine large-scale datasets. Machine learning algorithms account for a significant amount of energy consumed in data centers, which impacts the global energy consumption. However, machine learning algorithms are optimized towards predictive performance and scalability. Algorithms with low energy consumption are necessary for embedded systems and other resource constrained devices; and desirable for platforms that require many computations, such as data centers. Data stream mining investigates how to process potentially infinite streams of data without the need to store all the data. This ability is particularly useful for companies that are generating data at a high rate, such as social networks. This thesis investigates algorithms in the data stream mining domain from an energy efficiency perspective. The thesis comprises of two parts. The first part explores how to extract and analyze data from Twitter, with a pilot study that investigates a correlation between hashtags and followers. The second and main part investigates how energy is consumed and optimized in an online learning algorithm, suitable for data stream mining tasks. The second part of the thesis focuses on analyzing, understanding, and reformulating the Very Fast Decision Tree (VFDT) algorithm, the original Hoeffding tree algorithm, into an energy efficient version. It presents three key contributions. First, it shows how energy varies in the VFDT from a high-level view by tuning different parameters. Second, it presents a methodology to identify energy bottlenecks in machine learning algorithms, by portraying the functions of the VFDT that consume the largest amount of energy. Third, it introduces dynamic parameter adaptation for Hoeffding trees, a method to dynamically adapt the parameters of Hoeffding trees to reduce their energy consumption. The results show an average energy reduction of 23% on the VFDT algorithm. / Scalable resource-efficient systems for big data analytics

Cette thèse concerne les propriétés dynamiques des endomorphismes holomorphes du plan projectif complexe. La première partie introduit et minore les dimensions directionnelles du courant de Green. Nos résultats mènent une analyse multifractale des tranches de ce courant par des coordonnées locales, relativement aux mesures ergodiques dilatantes. Une première application montre que, relativement à toute mesure ergodique de grande entropie, tout courant positif fermé possède une dimension directionnelle strictement plus grande que deux, ce qui répond à une question de de Thélin-Vigny. Comme deuxième application, nous décrivons les dimensions directionnelles du courant de Green des endomorphismes semi-extrémaux de Dujardin, c'est à dire ceux dont la mesure d'équilibre est absolument continue par rapport à la mesure trace du courant de Green. Dans la deuxième partie, nous majorons les dimensions directionnelles du courant de Green en utilisant des techniques de Théorie du pluripotentiel. En combinant ces résultats à ceux de la première partie, nous montrons une propriété de séparation des dimensions directionnelles du courant de Green relativement à la mesure d'équilibre. Dans la dernière partie, nous étudions la régularité des tranches du courant de Green dans deux situations semi-extrémales. Nous montrons que la dérivée de Radon-Nikodym des tranches stables est bornée presque partout. Cette propriété, proche de l'absolue continuité par rapport à la mesure de Lebesgue, apporte une précision à nos résultats précédents. Les techniques utilisées ont également permis d'obtenir une nouvelle majoration de la dimension locale des mesures ergodiques dilatantes. Cette majoration nous rapproche de la conjecture de Binder-DeMarco concernant la dimension de la mesure d'équilibre. / This thesis studies the dynamical properties of holomorphic endomorphisms of the complex projective plane. The first part introduces and proves lower bounds for the directional dimensions of the Green current. We give there a multifractal analysis of the slices of that current by local coordinates, with respect to dilating ergodic measures. A first application shows that, with respect to every measure of large entropy, every closed positive current has a directional dimension strictly larger than two, which answers a question by de Thélin and Vigny. A second application describes the directional dimensions of the Green current of Dujardin's semi-extremal endomorphisms, which have an equilibrium measure absolutely continuous with respect to the trace measure of the Green current. The second part provides upper bounds for the directional dimensions of the Green current by using Pluripotential Theory. Combining these results with those of the first part, we obtain a separation property of the directional dimensions of the Green current with respect to the equilibrium measure. In the last part, we focus on the regularity of one-dimensional slices of the Green current in two semi-extremal situations. We show that the Radon-Nikodym derivative of the stable slices is bounded almost everywhere. This property is close to the absolute continuity with respect to the Lebesgue measure, and specifies our previous results. Our methods also allow to prove an upper bound for the local dimension of dilating ergodic measures, which is a new step towards Binder-DeMarco's conjecture concerning the dimension of the equilibrium measure.

Background: Logistics is paramount in the business operations as it ensures transit of goods from one point to the other. Green logistics are measures in the logistics systems that are put in place to minimize the environmental implication of logistics operations while at the same time saving on cost. Thus, green logistics is adopted as it conveys a competitive merit which enhances performance of a company. Saudi Basic Industries (SABIC) is one of the biggest petrochemicals in Saudi Arabia and holds the fifth position in the world among the leading producers of petrochemicals. The company already has green logistics in place. Purpose: To explore chemical industries green logistics practices and profitability with a particular case study of SABIC. The goal of this paper was achieved by investigating how has SABIC incorporated green practices into supply chain operations to remain profitable. The study answers “how has chemical industries incorporated green practices into supply chain operations to stay profitable?’ And “how do logistic managers recognize green logistics and to what level do chemical industries apply green logistics? Investigating a chemical industry green logistics is important as it contributes to literature since no single study has been carried out in this area. Suggestions from this study are crucial to SABIC, other chemical industry besides any other industry since in one way or the other companies do logistics. Method: The study utilized interpretivism. This study was a case study type of thesis focusing merely on SABIC, and it employed induction approach as well as the qualitative method of collecting data.  Interviews were used to explore the experiences, beliefs, motivations and views of individual participants. Using non-probability sampling method, five members in SABIC supply chain department were selected. Conclusion: The results show that SABIC or chemical industries utilize most of the green logistics activities (fuel efficiency, route optimization package optimization and calculating carbon emission). However, it was found out that fuel efficiency, route optimizations, and packaging optimization were most common activities. It was also discovered that one major objective of chemical industries going green was to cut cost which contributes positively to its profitability. However, reverse logistics was not familiar because of its nature; it cannot be sufficient on its own.

Master of Science / Department of Chemical Engineering / Larry E. Erickson / As our society continues to better prepare itself to address biological, radiological, chemical, and environmental emergencies, there is a need for better and more readily available emergency planning information for program managers and military/business personnel. An online hazardous materials and emergency planning tool for the Environmental Knowledge and Assessment Tool (EKAT: www.ekat-tool.com) would adequately fill that need. The proposed online Emergency Preparation and Green Engineering (EPGE) tool would provide the user with information regarding links to local emergency response teams and resources, guides for developing emergency plans and reports, Hazardous Materials (HAZMAT) training information, case studies to illustrate HAZMAT situations, and the ability to judge the environmental friendliness of chemicals. In this way it will serve as a means of facilitating and educating individuals for best responses in an organized fashion. In order to address their environmental responsibilities, public and private organizations are adopting Environmental Management Systems (EMS). The EPGE tool can be used in conjunction with Environmental Management Systems (EMS) to begin to address sustainability in a more practical setting. Currently the development of a comprehensive tool that identifies environmental, health, and safety concerns along with supplying relevant emergency data would be applicable to any business or organization. This tool will be available as an initial building block for the sustainability of the company. It can be used as a guide to better characterize and solve the environmental issues that could affect any business.

L’antennerie acoustique, aussi appelée formation de voies, est une technique d’identification acoustique basée sur un modèle de propagation analytique entre les sources de bruit et les microphones, la fonction de Green. Dans le cas de l’étude de sources aéroacoustiques en configuration réaliste, le milieu de propagation entre les sources et les microphones est la plupart du temps constitué d’un écoulement inhomogène et/ou d’une géométrie complexe. La fonction de Green n’est alors généralement pas connue et l’utilisation d’une fonction non adaptée conduit à une localisation ainsi qu’une mesure du niveau acoustique des sources erronées. L’objectif de cette thèse est le développement d’une méthode permettant d’estimer, grâce au code de propagation numérique de l’Onera résolvant les équations d’Euler (sAbrinA_v0), les composantes de la fonction de Green entre chaque point de focalisation (point source possible) et chaque microphone pour des cas de propagations complexes. Un seul calcul de propagation est effectué avec un ensemble de points sources positionnés en chacun des points de focalisation. La fonction de Green est ensuite estimée à partir de la résolution de problèmes inverses faisant intervenir les signaux sources et signaux calculés aux positions des microphones. Afin de valider l’approche, la formation de voies est ensuite mise en œuvre avec la fonction estimée, dans le but d’identifier des sources de bruit pour des cas 2D simples, puis des cas 2D avec un écoulement et/où une géométrie complexe. Les signaux microphoniques correspondant au rayonnement des sources à identifier sont obtenus analytiquement ou numériquement selon les cas. / The acoustic Beamforming, also called microphone array processing, is an acoustic identification technique based on an analytical propagation model between noise sources and microphones: the Green function. In the case of the study of aeroacoustic sources in realistic configuration, the propagation medium between sources and microphones is most often made up of an inhomogeneous flow and / or complex geometry. Green's function becomes then analytically difficult to determine and the use of an unsuitable function leads to spurious source localization and level measurement. The aim of this thesis is to overcome these difficulties by employing the Onera’s Euler solver sAbrinA_v0 to determine the Green's function components between each focus point (possible source point) and each microphone for complex cases. One propagation calculation is performed with a set of source points positioned in each of the focal points. The Green's function is then estimated from the resolution of inverse problems involving source signals and signals calculated at microphones position’s. To validate the approach, Beamforming is computed with the estimated function in order to identify noise sources for simple 2D case and 2D cases with a flow or/ with complex geometry. The microphone signals corresponding to the radiation of the sources to identify are obtained analytically or numerically depending on the case.

This thesis examines how small green Swedish farm shops are using green marketing and why customers are buying from small green farm shops. To examine this, two farm shops were chosen based on specific criteria; Gudmundsgården and Skrea Ost. The owners were interviewed about their marketing strategies and a questionnaire were handed out to their customers, regarding their attitudes towards green products and farm shops, in order to collect data from two perspectives and compare the farm shops’ perspective to the customers’ perspective. Both interviews resulted in similarities and differences between the farm shops regarding different marketing strategies and approaches, where customer relationships were the most important one. From the customers’ perspective, it was concluded that if a product was considered green, the green customers did not care much about the location of the farm shop or the price of the product. They are willing to drive further and pay more if they know that there are no additives in the product and that it has lower environmental harm. The research contributes with new knowledge about small green farm shops in Sweden, their marketing strategies and the importance of relationships.

The subject of green management is today relatively unexplored in existing literature, especially regarding SMEs in logistics. To bridge this gap this study aims to find what factors influence the implementation of green management for SMEs in logistics. Furthermore, this study aims to address the influential weight of these factors to create an even greater understanding within the topic. The chosen research method of this paper is qualitative, and the empirical data is collected through semi-structured interviews with Swedish logistic companies who have acquired the environmental management system ISO 14001. Furthermore, the research approach of this study is deductive. When implementing green management, this paper has found 4 factors that influence a company in various ways. What also has been found is what factors that have more influential weight and are essential to make such implementation effective. The study provides both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically it fills a gap current literature and further explains SMEs in logistics use of green management. Practically companies can draw from this study to see if they work effectively with green management or better prepare for a transition. The researchers of this study suggest that the factors of influence that are presented in the empirical findings should be tested in a quantitative study with a larger sample size to better measure the effect of each one in a practical context.

Society’s reliance on Information Technology (IT) has increased tremendously in the last few decades. Unfortunately, the growth of the IT sector has occurred at the expense of the environment. The adverse environmental impact of IT operations is partly due to the production and disposal of IT equipment, which can result in harmful pollution and toxic materials being released into the environment. Furthermore, IT equipment consumes large amounts of electricity, and this results in significant amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) being released into the atmosphere. Since CO2 is classified as a greenhouse gas, it contributes to the phenomenon of climate change. Organisations are socially and ethically required to minimise the environmental impact of their IT operations. However, in addition to fulfilling their responsibility towards environmental sustainability, organisations can gain a competitive advantage through adopting green IT practices. In order to reap the benefits of green IT and to fulfil their social and ethical responsibilities, organisations need to formulate and implement a comprehensive green IT strategy. When formulating strategic decisions, the use of a clear decision process enhances the effectiveness of such decisions. As a result, top IT management require a model or framework which could guide their thinking and allow for a clear decision process when formulating green IT strategy. However, after an extensive search of the literature had been conducted, a research gap was identified for the definition of a model which deals specifically with the formulation and execution of green IT strategy. As a result, this treatise sets out to answer the question of what organisations should consider when formulating and implementing green IT strategy. To answer the research question, the treatise defines a model for green IT strategy. The model was defined by conducting a content analysis of the literature on green IT. The content-analysis ABSTRACT iii research technique was utilised to identify the underlying concepts within the literature related to green IT strategy formulation and execution. The resulting model indicates that green IT strategy formulation requires holistic thinking, since several forces affect green IT strategy. As a result, these forces should be considered when a green IT strategy is to be formulated. However, even if a strategy is formulated by considering all the forces at play, it is of little use if it is not implemented effectively. The model indicates that green IT strategy should be implemented though a series of practices. These practices are not limited to IT practices alone, but include, in addition, several business practices. This indicates that green IT adoption extends far beyond the mere implementation of green technology.