Många företag arbetar utifrån någon form av miljöstrategi för att hantera sina relationer till naturen. I många fall är dock dessa miljöstrategier frånkopplade från företagets övriga strategiska arbete vilket leder till att det miljöstrategiska arbetet inte blir effektivt. Artikelns syfte är att utforska olika sätt på vilka effektiva miljöstrategier kan utvecklas inom företag. Utifrån ett resursperspektiv, lyfter vi fram materialflöde, kunskap och erfarenhet, relationer, kommunikation och kontroll som viktiga aspekter i en effektiv miljöstrategi. Med hjälp av dessa fem aspekter visar vi hur tre olika miljöstrategier, med olika innehåll och riktningar, kan utvecklas.

Many companies have adopted some form of environmental programme to manage their relationship with nature. However, a company’s environmental achievements tend to be disconnected from its general operations; consequently, these achievements are ineffective. The purpose of this article is to employ a conceptual approach to explore ways to compose effective corporate environmental strategies. From a resource perspective, the flow of material, knowledge and experiences, relationships, communication, and cooperation and control are discussed as strategy aspects central to an effective environmental strategy. Using these five strategy aspects we show how three different strategies with different contents and directions can be assembled.

During the last decades, the actors within the energy sector in Sweden—as well as in many other countries—have faced increasing demands to transform the energy system towards ecological sustainability. In Sweden these demands have led to numerous policies and economic incentives promoting the use of renewables (which in the Swedish discourse often also includes a connotation of “indigenous energy sources”), and especially the promotion of bioenergy. To be successful, however, these policies and economic incentives need to be interpreted and adapted to different local contexts and translated into actual transformation processes. In Sweden the municipal authorities have played an important role as interpreters of such institutional frameworks and implementers of local transformation processes. In this article, we re-construct three transformation processes implemented by local municipal authorities, chiselling out the different strategy models developed through them. We argue that such re-constructions help to make visible the different and complex interactions between national institutional frameworks and local contexts as well as interactions within such local contexts. We hope that the strategy models presented can contribute to the understanding of the different kinds of local actions that can foster a further implementation of bioenergy into the energy system.

Askåterföring är ett medel för att långsiktigt kunna ta ut en stor mängd skogsbränslen utan att därför utarma marken. Projektet som avslutades med en rapport år 2004 är en systemstudie där hela kedjan från fjärrvärmeföretaget till den enskilda skogsägaren undersöks. Projektet har två huvudsyften, dels att undersöka och tydliggöra drivkrafter och hinder för askåterföring ur ett dynamiskt perspektiv, dels ge underlag för rekommendationer för den praktiska utformningen av olika askåterföringssystem. Fokus ligger på formella och informella institutioner, dvs. såväl på utformningen av olika lagar och regelverk som på aktörernas, i huvudsak bränsleanvändarnas, bränslemäklarföretagens och skogsägarnas attityder och erfarenheter. För att optimera de totala förutsättningarna och undvika ”närsynthet” präglas projektet av en systemsyn som sträcker sig från den primära askproducenten, värmeverket, till den slutlige askkonsumenten, skogsägaren. Den empiriska delen består av tre fallstudier av tre energiföretag, Växjö Energi AB, Borås Energi AB samt Falu Energi AB samt en enkät som besvarades av nära nog samtliga relevanta energiföretag i Sverige.

Executive summary Ash recycling is a means to safe guard nutrient availability while harvesting forest fuels. Research on the consequences of ash recycling started in the end of the 1970’s, definite results were presented in 1996. The National Board of Forestry presented guidelines on ash recycling in 1999 and 2001. Yet, there has been no large scale application of the technology despite improved economic incentives. A waste tax which also applies to ash was introduced in 2000, it has been successively increased and today amounts to 370 SwCr/ton. This is a systems study of ash recycling where the whole chain from district heating utility to individual forest owner is investigated. Case studies of three district heating utilities, Växjö Energi AB, Borås Energi AB and Falu Energi AB, indicate that the utilities have, generally, been satisfied with their activities on ash recycling and see the investment constantly improving while the tax is increasing. A nation-wide questionnaire shows that the greatest impediments to ash recycling have been that managements miss clear-cut rules, have not been able to buy the service and generally considered that they lack knowledge. About a third of the utilities actively tried to identify other means of disposing of their ash. Main driving forces for ash recycling have been environmental concerns and to create immaterial values. Under these circumstances ash recycling may equal the deposition costs. Previous research has indicated that non-industrial private forest owners consider that nutrient loss may render the harvest of forest fuels problematic. Our study on forest owners show a great need for knowledge, the forest owner frequently indicates that he/she does not know sufficiently to be able to evaluate ash recycling. Forest owners who reject ash recycling motivate this by saying that the forest residues should be left to decompose in the forest, that modern forestry depletes the soils, that payment for the forest fuels is insufficient, and that the spreading of the ash may result in damage on remaining trees and soil. Forest owners who accept recycling appreciate that the ash increases the pH, refer to a recycling perspective, consider that mechanical damage is very limited, and state that they have faith in the extension agent who proposed the activity. Legislation presently permits a simple administration of ash recycling under the auspices of local forestry boards. This lucidity in the legislation and the outspoken desire for this utilisation of wood ash at government level is a singular feat which does not apply to other uses. Two major impediments remain to a large scale recycling of ash to the forest. A general lack of knowledge on all levels and the alternative – usually much lower – cost for other utilisations such as road building, covering of old deposits and others. To be able to make any definite prognoses about the future for ash recycling to the forest a continued investigation of the pricing, sustainability and legal status of these other ways of utilising the ash must be carried out.

Syftet med studien är att belysa hur hushållen förhåller sig till olika energilösningar, i synnerhet bioenergiapplikationer. Hur gör olika hushåll den komplexa ekonomiska, miljömässiga och praktiska verkligheten hanterbar, exempelvis vid motstridiga signaler om huruvida å ena sidan biobränslen eller å andra sidan värmepump är det mest sunda uppvärmningssättet? Vad utelämnar hushållen när de är tvungna att välja ut vissa få aspekter inom de tre dimensionerna? Hur kan samhällets övriga energiaktörer bidra med att göra valet av uppvärmningssätt mer hanterbart så att de väsentligaste faktorerna för miljö, ekonomi och praktik kan inrymmas i hushållens val av energislag. Vi lägger särskild vikt vid att i vår undersökning även fokusera på handlings- och förändringsberedskapen hos olika hushållskategorier, snarare än att enbart jämföra attityder med faktiska energihandlingar. Konkret undersöker vi hur hushållen resonerar om möjligheter, fördelar och nackdelar med att gå över till – eller – bibehålla uppvärmningsystem med biobränslen jämfört med olika system som bygger på el, fossila bränslen eller konventionell vedeldning. Detta angreppssätt är avsett att lyfta fram bakgrunder till de olika förändringsprocesser som är möjliga.

Households base their choices of heating systems on subjectively dependent conceptions of heating sources, rather than on an understanding of a complex reality. Similar to other agents in society, households need to construct simplified frames to be able to make their choices possible to manage. Using in-depth interviews with households in Småland (in Sweden) with a few comparisons from Massachusetts (in the USA), the study has identified a number of frames through which households simplify the financial, practical and ecolological complexities of various heating systems. The households have been sampled strategically in order to generate a broad range of household responses. Various heating systems – based on bioenergi, electricity, and fossil fuels - are covered in the study. Objective household categories (e.g., age, generation, housing type or size), frequently covered in previous studies, have a weak connection to choices of energy systems. Instead, this study has elaborated on four subjective household categories more closely correlated with energy system choices: the energy implementors, the planners, the visionaries, and the resigned. The report argues that an understanding of subjective household categories and frame constructions are useful as various energy actors try to collaborate with households toward different heating systems. This understanding is especially important for the transition to and maintenance of bioenergy solutions. However, it is crucial that such collaboration not be reduced to “learning about misunderstandings and knowledge gaps among households in order to correct them.” Rather, the type of collaboration that we call for concern taking into account, and learning from, various types of priorities and experiences which are reflected in the frame constructions among the household categories.

The public sector in Sweden has charged its institutional structures with a new goal for societal development under the rubric "The Sustainable Sweden". This has been the result of international agreements that Sweden has entered into and domestic debates concerning the need for a sustainable development. The interaction between the public sector and the development of the energy system has entered a new phase. At the same time market reorientation has radically changed the public sector's possibilities to directly control the implementation of the sustainability goals in the energy system. Influence through ownership and the direct political control that this entailed has more or less been voluntarily phased out during recent years by governmental and municipal organizations. The desire for a change towards sustainable development has, however, meant that the public sector needs new ways to initiate, push for or support processes of change within the energy system in its new, multifaceted shape. Therefore in this study we focus on the energy sector and the possibilities to development steering methods for a sustainable energy system by: - Studying processes of change in different parts of the energy system with the purpose of identifying different forms for strategic change, - Describing the pressures, barriers and possibilities which are made visible in these processes, - Discussing and developing methods for managing and steering the processes of change.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur förändringsprocesser mot ett hållbart energisystem går till i verkligheten. Fokus läggs på strategiska förändringsprocesser inom den kommunala sektorn och på att identifiera centrala drag som är avgörande för förändringsprocessens resultat.

The aim of the study is to develop a framwork that will enable an increased understanding of the competitiveness of bioenergy today and in the future. The conceptions that the actors of the energy system uphold are studied and analysed. The conceptions of the actors are seen as key factors for the understanding of the function of the energy system and accordingly also for the understanding of the competitiveness of bioenergy.

The aim of the study is first to develop a framework for studies of the future competitiveness of bioenergy and secondly to elucidate critical factors for the future competitiveness of bioenergy.