attention in research; be it past or present (see Leslie, 1995; Geiser and Crul, 1996; Buckley, 2007; Blanco et al., 2009; Thomas et al., 2011). An explanation for this is that small enterprises (which predominate in tourism and hospitality) hardly meet the standard models of business promulgated in business schools and the ways of managing a business be that in finance and accounting, marketing or, perhaps most notably in what is inappropriately termed ‘Human Resource Management’ in the business schools of so many universities. Compensating for this in many ways has been the rise in attention, especially over the last decade, to entrepreneurship. The latter is of particular significance given the EU’s initiative ‘responsible entrepreneurship’ (essentially Corporate Social Responsibility), which is seen as a way towards balancing the three pillars of sustainability which itself is considered by the EU to be a societal responsibility (EC, 2002). A further factor in the lack of attention to SMEs in tourism, especially in the UK, originally bespoke hospitality and tourism management degree programmes are now located in various guises of what in effect are general business management programmes. A shift away from vocational and operational knowledge and skills, especially in hospitality, is very much a function of ‘academic drift’ (Leslie, 1990) and maintaining student enrolments. A significant outcome of this is the lack of research into SMEs generally both past (Geiser and Crul, 1996) and present, especially in the context of the greening of small/micro tourism enterprises. In this context, ‘greening’ may well be interpreted as meaning at least ‘good environmental housekeeping, reducing energy consumption, saving water and minimising waste’ (Porritt, 1997, p. 32).
It is widely recognized that tourism supply overall comprises predominantly micro-businesses (defined as businesses employing ten or fewer persons), a low proportion of small enterprises (less than 50 employees) and, in comparative terms based on actual number of businesses, few enterprises which employ more than 50 persons. To illustrate, in the EU wherein tourism is considered to be the third largest economic sector, it is estimated to account for 40% of all international arrivals and has a total estimated tourism income of Ç266 billion approximately three quarters of which is attributed to EU residents (EC, 2010). Figures for the tourism enterprises in the EU show that there are 1.8m businesses employing a total of 9.7m people, which equates to 5.2% of the workforce. It is estimated to account for 5% GDP, which if linkages are included, rises to 10% of GDP and 12% of total employment. Over 90% of these enterprises, it is predominantly hotels and restaurants that are SME in size of which some 90% are micro-enterprises. Collectively, these tourism enterprises represent some 70–80% of the total number of SMEs in Europe and approximately 6.5% of attributed turnover (Leidner, 2004). Further, they have been considered to account for 99% of European tourism supply (Vernon et al., 2003). These tourism enterprises are now very much a focus within the more general area of the Enterprise Directorate. Thus, they are subject to the influence of EU policy instruments promoting the greening of enterprise. Witness the 6th European Action Plan that called specifically for enterprises to ‘go green’ by way of becoming more efficient in the use of resources and reducing waste (EC, 2001), as well as those instruments aimed at the promotion and development of SMEs (Leslie, 2011, p. 45). This is further affirmed through their argument for ‘… increased energy efficiency, partly through the implementation of environmental management systems in SMEs.’ (EC, 2008, p. 16). Interestingly, this greening has also been considered beneficial not only because of reducing GHG emissions but in generating jobs (Pratt, 2011). Furthermore, as Middleton argued:
At their best micro-businesses deliver most of what is special and appealing about destinations – vibrancy, personality, product quality and leading edge excellence – at their worst they represent most of what is worst in modern tourism, dragging down the destination image (2000, p. 1).
They are a vital part of rural localities and in many instances to the national economy. Undoubtedly they are important at the destination level but also when considered more widely, be that at regional, national or international level, their significance becomes all the more important; witness the oft-cited claim that tourism is the biggest global industry!
Individually these tourism SMEs may have little impact, but aggregated their energy consumption and waste becomes substantial and thus tourism per se is a major polluter, and largely unregulated (Leslie, 2007b). It is not difficult to concur with Blair and Hitchcock (2001) that in comparison with most other sectors of consumer services tourism overall has the most substantial negative impacts. Such argument also brings into contention the impacts of these enterprises in terms of their use and consumption of resources, and wider issues of sustainability. It has been argued that their: ‘actions impact daily upon sustainability issues’ (Becker et al., 1999, p. 1, cited in Leslie, 2007b, p. 93). As the OECD (2009) argued, it is the responsibility of the tourism business to ensure that the products offered have as little impact on the environment as possible. Furthermore, it has been argued that:
Conventional wisdom has it that small local business will have the greatest regard for the community environment but there is scant evidence to justify that. The opposite seems probable (EIU, 1993, p. 96).
It is a view which serves to reinforce the social dimension of sustainability and one which begs the question of whether such a critique is borne out by research into tourism SMEs. Essentially, tourism enterprises need to operate within the natural capacity of the destination. In other words there should be no diminution of the natural capital. The maintenance of this natural capital is not just a localized matter but global, for increasingly what happens ‘there’ affects ‘here’, and vice-versa, in what is now an increasingly globalized market. Addressing the overall impact of tourism therefore is more complex than, for example, simply considering the physical impact on the environment of a new hotel. At the same time they generate employment opportunities (Zientara, 2012), opportunities for entrepreneurs (Badulescu and Badulescu, 2012) and sociocultural benefits for many people within the host community (Scheyvens, 2002; Timothy, 2012) and support environmental initiatives (Leslie, 2009; Spenceley and Rylance, 2012). However, it also needs to be recognized that the potential pluses that can arise from tourism development and thus tourism enterprise are largely influenced by context and setting (for example, see Pleumarom, 2009, 2012).
What attention tourism enterprises have gained in the context of being ‘responsible’, thus to their environmental management systems (EMS), environmental performance (EP) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in research papers, on close analysis often finds that they are based on national and/or multi-national corporations (N/MNCs), thus comparatively large hotels in the 3- to 5-star category. Rarely does such research evidence continuity over time by either the researchers involved and/or as regards the geographic area (for example, USA – Mensah 2004; Scanlon, 2007; Vietnam – Trung and Kumar, 2005; Sweden and Poland – Bohdanowicz, 2006; Spain – Rodriguez and Cruz, 2007; China/Hong Kong – Chan et al., 2005; Turkey – Erdogan and Baris, 2006. Alternatively, when such research does involve SMEs the attention given to the greening of small tourism enterprises is limited (for example, see Robinson et al., 2000; Hall et al., 2005; Thomas and Augustyn, 2007; Blanco et al., 2009; Hall and Gossling, 2009). Overall, this limited attention in research and its contribution therefore to educational programmes may go some way to explain the lack of attention within tourism studies to SMEs and vice versa. Yet it has been well argued that education is the key to making real progress in addressing sustainability issues. Irrespective of this, examples of best practice, albeit invariably of national/international companies in the tourism sector are not hard to find but these tend to be in specific publications such as the ‘Green Hotelier’, though far wider in scope the United Nations Environmental Programme’s (UNEP) publication ‘Our Planet’, and the Forum for the Future’s ‘Green Futures’ or more localized, for example the publications of ATLAS and with emphasis on SMEs and culture, Tourism Concern’s publication ‘In Focus’. Thus the substantive contributions of Hall et al (2005), Herremans (2006), Thomas and Augustyn (2007), Buckley (2009) and with a specific focus on SMEs and greening Leslie (2009, 2012b) are all the more valuable. In effect, there is a lack of research into SMEs per se, and even less into the EP, EM and CSR related practices of SMEs in tourism. Witness Carter et al.’s (2004) study, which drew extensively on articles from the 1990s, into the EP of accommodation in Australia, few of which were actually based on empirical research; a situation which has hardly changed since (see Tzschentke