The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of green service. In particular, the focus is on identifying homopathic and heteropathic resource integration processes that preserve or increase the resourceness of the natural ecosystem.
Through an extensive multiple case study involving ten service providers from diverse sectors based on a substantial number of interviews, detailed accounts of green service are provided.
Six resource integration processes were identified: reducing, recirculating, recycling, redistributing, reframing and renewing. While four of these processes are based on homopathic resource integration, both reframing and renewing are based on heteropathic resource integration. While homopathic processes historically constitute a green service by mitigating the impact of consumption on the environment, heteropathic resource integration increases the resourceness of the natural ecosystem through emergent processes and the (re)creation of natural resources.
The present study breaks away from the paradigm that “green service” is about reducing the negative environmental impact of existing services, toward providing a green service that expands biological diversity and other natural resources.
Transformative service research on environmental sustainability is still in its infancy. The present study contributes through conceptualizing green service, redefining existing resource integration processes (reducing, recirculating, recycling) and identifying new resource integration processes (redistributing, reframing, renewing).
