ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between ethics, small firms and the environment, using the empirical findings from a national study that investigated the perceived gap between environmental attitudes and behaviour of small firms in the UK. It provides an outline of the link between ethics, business and the environment and investigates small firms in the context of environmental ethics and an overview of the emerging literature in this field. The chapter considers the implications and issues raised by a 'shallow ecology' approach to small-firm environmental ethics. Environmental ethics is, like business ethics, a new field of inquiry within the wider discipline of ethics. Small-firm ethics and corporate social responsibility emerged in the business literature in the US during the 1970s and 1980s. The interview data on environmental regulation is used in this chapter to draw out the ethical concerns of the small-firm owner-managers and to identify the dominant environmental ethic held by the small firms in the study.
