Abstract
Summary: Despite the dominant role service industries play in modern society, those industries have by and large not been involved in the strong efforts underway to create environmentally responsible operations. Part of the reason is that the role of these industries as driving factors in resource flows has not been recognized. Perhaps more important, no common framework for assessing the environmental responsibility of service industries has been established. This article provides such a framework and applies it to a generic service industry: automotive repair. Among the results are that evaluation must take different forms for different types of services, and that the approaches of service industries to the use of buildings and equipment will require innovative solutions quite unlike those advocated for the “greening” of manufacturing operations.

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