We investigate the effect of the environment on the Faber-Jackson (FJ) relation, using a sample of 384 nearby elliptical galaxies and estimating objectively their environment on the typical scale of galaxy clusters. We show that the intrinsic scatter of the FJ relation is significantly reduced when ellipticals in high-density environments are compared to ellipticals in low-density ones. This result, which holds in a limited range of overdensities, is likely to provide an important observational link between scaling relations and formation mechanisms in galaxies.