This book discusses the mutual relationship between service and sustainability. It covers methodologies and approaches and describes measurements and tools that can promote sustainability on the service market. Lastly, it presents the different applications of sustainability, together with examples of sustainable services. Environmental concerns have become integral to any decision-making process in the design and implementation of goods and services. With the increasing dominance of the service sector, and as service systems become more complex and interdisciplinary, the focus must move from the exchange of products to that of services. Newly created services should thus aim to incorporate sustainability into their designs while viewing sustainability as a service in its own right. Integrating sustainability in the service design and development process is essential to improving the sustainability of our society and preserving the environment. Moreover, doing so shifts the service boundaries from values that are focused only on personal, local, and current needs and economic profit to those that are broader and more future oriented, ultimately placing greater social and environmental responsibility on all stakeholders. In addition, it advances the current state-of-the-art in sustainable development and service design and contributes to improving the quality of life on a global scale.

Cities are without a doubt one of the miracles of human creation and the embodiment of the human environment. Insofar as they are large and densely populated human settlements with defined legal and political boundaries that comprise clusters of buildings, open spaces, public facilities and infrastructure, cities are mainly spaces of services that are exchanged between a wide variety of stakeholders- namely, residents, traders, visitors, and the city authorities. Moreover, the provision of cities' services has profound effect on the local and global sustainability. Thus, municipal services should comprise environmental, social, and economic values, which are designed, produced, and delivered in concert. Over the years, a variety of new urban models and concepts have been designed and proposed as viable means to reestablish the bond between the human and the natural environments, to increase the quality of life within cities, and to reduce the impacts that cities have on the social and natural environments (e.g., sustainable city, smart city, or resilient city). Herein, a new model of the service-city is presented, including architecture and several pertinent examples, which considers it as a platform that manages and integrates the services and systems currently provided by the city while offering additional supporting services to increase the effectiveness of the value and to achieve the goal of sustainability.

Every one of us produce and/or use services on a daily basis. Each of these services provision requires both physical and nonphysical resources, and have potentially short and long-term effects on both the local and the global scales. Thus, in order to perpetuate the services for long periods of time without negatively influencing the natural or social environment, we should produce and deliver sustainable services. In Sustainable Service, readers will find an overview on the main paradigms, concepts and terminology in the fields of sustainability and service science, in the process discussing the benefits to be gained by - and the challenges entailed in - their reciprocal relationship. In addition, they will find techniques to enhance the sustainability of services by integrating smart use of resources with behaving with environmental and social awareness. Finally, adopting the ideas in the book will promote the co-creation of sustainable services between provider and customer while turning the customer to a provider of sustainability to current and subject generations.