Preventative environmental strategies in the service sector

Abstract: Preventative environmental approaches (e.g. Cleaner Production and Pollution Prevention) have been successfully implemented in the manufacturing industry. They are, however, far from being fully adopted by all society actors. It has, for instance, not been fully embraced by the service sector. When this research project started, the initial question was whether it was possible to adopt experiences in using preventative environmental strategies from the manufacturing industry into the service sector, and what would distinguish their application from the manufacturing industry. This thesis shows that there are no indications that the fundamental principles of preventative environmental strategies should not be applicable to service companies and organisations, as well. In fact, it seems that we can directly transfer much of the knowledge and experience from the manufacturing industry and apply it in service organisations, since most of the problems found are very similar to those of the manufacturing industry. The only major difference identified is that customers participate in the "production" of a service; that is, depending on how customers interact in the production, they directly determine the environmental performance of the service system. This also means that educating, "steering" and involving the customers become crucial issues for service management in improving environmental performance.