AN OVERVIEW OF GREEN PRACTICES IN SERVICE SECTOR

Abstract

‘Green’ is the marketing buzzword of new millennium. During past decade, there has been a growing awareness of widespread environmental degradation. The concerns about the environment and consumer’s inclination towardsgreen products & services have forced organizations to adopt green practices. Service sector which represents 57%of Indian economy, is also embracing green marketing. This sector is responsible for huge resource consumptionand has a big responsibility in ensuring that business models adopted are sustainable in long run. Hence the paper attempts to examine the reasons behind adoption of green practices in service sector. The purpose of this paper is tohighlight the environment friendly initiatives taken by service organizations. Some service providers like Tata, ITC, Reliance, IBM, Wipro, Idea, and Infosys are following this concept and have painted themselves green. The studyseeks to explore the green practices of those service industries like banking, information technology, education, transportation, health care, hotel industries, telecommunication and professional services etc. Greening of services isthe need of an hour, especially for Indian economy. The government should also appreciate and support these effortsto establish the importance and efficacy of greening of service sector. The conceptual model presented inthisresearch paper will emphasize the green practices as internal efforts to implement environmentally friendly practicestowards the goal of becoming a green facility and will give a solution to global warming dilemma.