A method is provided in one example embodiment and may include communicating information between a plurality of network function virtualized (NFV) based applications; and creating at least one service chain using at least two of the plurality of NFV-based applications based on the information communicated between the plurality NFV based applications. In some instances, the information can be communicated using border gateway protocol (BGP) exchanges between the NFV-based applications. In some instances, the information can include at least one of: next-hop address information for one or more ingress points of a particular NFV-based application; one or more capabilities by which a particular NFV-based application can receive data on one or more ingress points; and a method by which one or more egress points of a previous NFV-based application in a particular service chain is to perform load balancing for a subsequent NFV-based application in the particular service chain.