The impact of customer contact on environmental initiatives for service firms

The impact of business operations on the natural environment has been a pub lic concern for decades and a research concern for years. To date, the focu s of Environmental impact research has been almost exclusively on manufactu ring industries. Environmental research specific to service industries have been neglected, despite the fact that economies of developed nations are m ostly made up of service businesses. This paper explores potential distinct ions of service businesses as they may influence management motivation for taking environmentally friendly actions. Through a number of case studies, we observe some commonality of environmental motivations between service an d manufacturing industries, as well as some environmental themes unique to services. These themes pertain to customer awareness of environmental initi atives of service firms by virtue of their involvement in the production pr ocess. Interestingly, customer involvement can have an adverse affect on en vironmental initiatives.