Abstract This research is designed to see the level of innovativeness of fashion brands in terms of being sustainable. It also aims to find out if there is a relation between business models and innovativeness within sustainability of fashion brands. Following the literature review, desk research, consumer survey and expert interviews are carried out. Desk research is made through web pages of fashion brands and some organizations. The information from the web pages revealed a lot about the current sustainability actions. In this desk research, 10 companies are examined in regard to their sustainability actions, to learn about what has been done and to see what can be considered as innovative in terms of sustainability. Following the desk research, a consumer survey is designed to explore the consumer opinion on the topics of sustainability and innovation. A consumer survey of 100 people is conducted at the Swedish School of Textiles. Due to the need for conscious knowledge about sustainability and innovation, people who studies or works in the textile school is specifically chosen as a cluster. The sample is called “Informed consumers” and is believed to have savvy about innovation and sustainability. How sustainability actions of brands are perceived, how consumers evaluate fashion brands and what they understand from “innovativeness” are some questions explored in the survey. Results are given via frequency distribution charts and maps. Following the survey, 5 interviews are made with contacts from the companies to study the issue also from the perspective of the business world. These expert interviews are verbally structured and are explained within the research. The method of interviews is qualitative research method and the result provides the reader an insight. To propose an assessment method for fashion companies, “The Innovation within Sustainability Index” is constructed. Although this index is inspired by some current environmental index models, the final model is original and includes the consumer perspective as well as author’s own evaluation on the innovative sustainability actions of the fashion companies. The companies which are evaluated in the index are: H&M, Lindex, Gina Tricot, Zara, Acne, Filippa K, Patagonia and Nike. At the end, it was not possible to point out significant relation between business models and innovativeness within sustainability. However, this result may differ when the model is applied to larger samples. / Program: Master Programme in Fashion Management

Circularity and sustainability, these are terms that are discussed in many different ways in current research due to the climate crisis. To face the challenges of the climate crisis and new consumer behaviour, the still emerging concept of Industry 4.0 is considered in different ways. When it comes to circularity, this thesis highlights and focuses on the circularity part of reverse logistics or in other words, the reverse flow of goods in a supply chain. These themes are interrelated but not seen as a whole by research so far. This thesis analyses which Industry 4.0 technologies can be used in reverse logistics, what economic, environmental and social effects they have and how they can be measured. Methodologically, we combine exploratory and explanatory research with a deductive way of reasoning, where we analyse data of 4 interviews and 2 surveys in at total 5 Swedish and German manufacturing companies out of the mining, construction equipment, electronics, fasteners and communication industry with a multi method qualitative approach. This is done with the help of literature related to Industry 4.0, reverse logistics as well as environmental, economical and social sustainability. Our results are that the most used Industry 4.0 technologies by manufacturing companies in reverse logistics are Big Data, CPS, IoT and AI. When it comes to sustainability effects and measurements, the companies mostly are focusing on economical and environmental sustainability, while social sustainability is not observed to a similar extent. Especially environmental effects are seen and measured as these figures are important and in demand at the market right now, while economical effects are more often measured with regular KPIs and social effects are not considered as much.

This thesis develops and validates a comprehensive methodology for measuring sustainability of a large river basin by using a tailored indicator set. The concept of river sustainability concerns not only the ecological condition of the river course, but also socioeconomic activities in the river basin. River sustainability is defined from five perspectives: sufficient resource, resilience to water-related risks, access to water supply and other services, productive use of water, and fairness between different users and generations. The Process Analysis Method (PAM) is employed as the guideline for developing sustainability assessment framework. As a participatory approach, PAM engages stakeholders to identify emerging issues and impacts on sustainability. Through a systematic process, a tailored indicator set is selected and categorized under three domains, namely, environmental performance, social wellbeing, and economic development. Two case studies have been undertaken, examining the underlying sustainability of the Lower Yellow River basin (LYR) and Upper Ganges River basin (UGR). Extensive fieldwork was carried out in China and India, in order to conduct stakeholder interviews and to collect multivariate data. 18 indicators are selected for LYR and 12 for UGR. The LYR assessment is conducted over the period from 1950 to 2010, whilst UGR features a 10-year period from 2001 to 2010. By processing raw hydrological data and socio-economic statistics, a normalized score is calculated for each indicator in a given year, the value ranging between 0 and 1, where 0 represents poor performance and 1 refers to a fully sustainable status. The results show that, although social wellbeing and economic status for LYR have progressively improved since 1950, environmental quality declined in the latter half of 20th century, with the lowest point in 1997 when extreme drought occurred. The Yellow River Conservancy Commission (YRCC), the government authority responsible for the LYR, implemented measures to improve the river health by multifunctional infrastructure projects and water allocation regulation. This effort proved to be effective as the general sustainability performance subsequently improved. The UGR study also identifies the trade-off between environmental capital and socioeconomic capital. With vast expansion of hydropower projects and new settlement in flood-prone areas, communities along the UGR are increasingly vulnerable to extreme events. However, the Ganges river basin authority lacks the capacity for integrated planning which would enable projects like flood defence schemes to be undertaken in a proper framework. It is likely that the environmental performance of the UGR will continue to decline, particularly with increasing uncertainty in climate, as the UGR basin management is not improving resilience sufficiently. By performing this comparative analysis, it has been shown that integrated river basin management should incorporate institutional capacity, stakeholder engagement, resilience and transparency. This research also contributes to underpinning policies for Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM). The assessment provides policy-makers and river managers with a holistic view of the river basin; the framework can be used to track progress towards sustainable development and identify priorities for multi-criteria decision-making.

Environmental changes and social instability are two great challenges of today’s society. The development of the sustainable bond market is a response to these. The demand is strong but there is no clear definition of the instruments and there is no standardised way of measuring the effect of them. The purpose of this thesis is thus to study the impact of sustainable bonds, and ways to communicate it to stakeholders. The research consists of nine interviews and the results are analysed in alignment with theoretical frameworks and models evaluated in a literature review. The key findings focus on suggestions for measures and creating a common language for reporting. The main recommendation for the commissioner is to undertake the following three steps: 1) Collect and aggregate all raw data from issuers into their systems. 2) Create harmonised values of the data. 3) Include soft and general values in the calculations. / Klimatförändringar och social osäkerhet är två stora utmaningar i dagens samhälle. Utvecklingen av hållbara obligationer är en följd av dessa. Efterfrågan är stark men det finns ingen tydlig definition av instrumenten och det finns inget standardiserat sätt att mäta effekten av dem. Syftet med denna studie är därför att undersöka påverkan av hållbara obligationer samt sätt att kommunicera dem till intressenter. Forskningen består av nio intervjuer och resultaten är analyserade i linje med de teoretiska ramverk samt modeller som utvärderas i litteraturstudien. Nyckelresultaten fokuserar på förslag till mätetal samt skapandet av ett gemensamt språk för rapportering. Huvudrekommendationen till uppdragsgivaren är att ta sig an följande tre steg: 1) Samla och aggregera rådata från emittenter i system. 2) Harmonisera data så att den är jämförbar. 3) Inkludera mjuka och generella värden i beräkningar.