Literature Review Green Marketing

Literature Review

Cateora Graham, in International Marketing, has drawn a parallel line between green marketing and product development. The author has cited a variety of examples where the importance of green marketing has been laid focus on. Green marketing is a term used to identify concern with the environmental consequences of a variety of marketing activities. It very evident from the author’s research and examples the packaging and solid waste rules are burdensome but there are successful cases of not only meeting local standards but also being able to transfer this approach to other markets. [2]

Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller in Marketing Management has initiated the topic by discussing about the relevance of green marketing in the past few decades and has also discussed the explosion of environmentally friendly products. However, according to the author from the branding perspective green marketing programs have not been very successful. Marketers tried and failed with green sales pitches over the last decade because of certain obstacles which the movement encountered. The consumer behaviour is such that most consumers appear unwillingly to give up the benefits of other alternatives to choose green products.

Along with definitions from different sources, the authors Debraj Dutta and Mahua Dutta, of Marketing Management, have given an explanation of what is green marketing. According to the authors green marketing incorporates a broad range of activities including the modification of product, production process and packaging. The authors have also discussed a few literature sources that have focused on green marketing and its relevance in today’s era. It was evident that the possible reasons because of which organizations engage in green marketing.

K.K.Shrivastava & Sujata Khandai, the author of Consumer Behaviour in Indian Context, has discussed green marketing legislation in association with the multinational corporations. These face a growing variety of legislation designed to address environmental issues. Global concern for the environment extends beyond industrial pollution, hazardous waste disposal and rampant deforestation to include issues that focus directly on consumer products.

Kenneth E. Clow & Donald Baack the authors of Integrated Advertising, Promotion and Marketing Communication. According to the authors the marketers need to be aware of the threats and opportunities associate with four trends in the natural environment namely shortage of raw materials, increased cost of energy, increased pollution levels and the changing roles of government. New regulations hit certain industries very hard and also that consumers often appear conflicted about the natural environment.

Jacquelyn A. Ottman the author of Green Marketing: Opportunity for Innovation, has explained green marketing from an organizational standpoint, environmental considerations should be integrated into all aspects of marketing new product development and communications and all points in between. According to the author environment should be balanced with primary customer needs. The so-called "green consumer" movements in the U.S. and other countries have struggled to reach critical mass and to remain in the forefront of shoppers' minds. The lack of consensus by consumers, marketers, activists, regulators, and influential people has slowed the growth of green products.

According to the American Marketing Association (Wikipedia), green marketing is the marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe. Thus green marketing incorporates a broad range of activities, including product modification, changes to the production process, packaging changes, as well as modifying advertising. It could be concluded that defining green marketing is not a simple task where several meanings intersect and contradict each other; an example of this will be the existence of varying social, environmental and retail definitions attached to this term. As we know that the emerging greenhouse gas reduction market can potentially catalyze projects with important local environmental, economic, and quality-of-life benefits. The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), for example, enables trading between industrial and developing nations, providing a framework that can result in capital flows to environmentally beneficial development activities.

Prof. Sanjit Kumar Dash author of Green Marketing: Opportunities & Challenges has mentioned that all activities designed to generate and facilitate any exchange intended to satisfy human needs or wants such that satisfying of these needs and wants occur with minimal detrimental input on the national environment. The evolution of green marketing involves (three phases) from this article. First phase was termed as "Ecological" green marketing, and during this period all marketing

activities were concerned to help environment problems and provide remedies for environmental problems. Second phase was "Environmental" green marketing and the focus shifted on clean technology that involved designing of innovative new products, which take care of pollution and waste issues. Third phase was "Sustainable" green marketing. It came into prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000.

In the Strategic Marketing and Green Marketing, the Green Imperative is impossible to ignore, and companies are scrambling to understand how to develop business models that are more sustainable. After an objective analysis of all product, process, and policy issues associated with your company as well as performing an assessment of your current marketing strategy, we can develop a comprehensive sustainability and corporate responsibility strategy to increase ROI. The organization will then become more efficient through environmental and social responsibility, achieve superior competitive advantage and brand differentiation, as well as enhance your brand image in the marketplace.

In accordance with the Strategic Marketing - Brand Development and Green marketing the brand image is derived from marketing strategy. We can develop the brand identity and mold the company's image within the framework of the strategic marketing plan. This strategy and design teams develop the marketing communications materials around maintaining a positive, distinctive, and consistent brand image in the marketplace. The American Wind Energy Association has associated green marketing with wind energy. Green marketing can improve the environmental profile of the U.S. electricity supply if marketers sell a power product that includes a substantial fraction of wind, geothermal, biomass (including landfill gas) and/or solar resources. The generation of power from these renewable resource technologies produces few or no air emissions, no carbon. They will be most vulnerable in competitive markets and can most benefit from consumer support. While "green" is difficult to define, and arguments can be made that natural gas and large hydropower are less environmentally harmful than coal, oil, and nuclear power, green-customer demand is unlikely to exceed the supply of large, existing quantities of gas and hydro resources. Anja Schaefer from the The Open University (BBC) has mentioned that green marketing is there in a sizeable market segment of green consumers who are willing to pay a little more for environmentally friendly products from environmentally friendly

companies. Producers and retailers will react to this green demand and environmentally friendly practices will be pushed through the supply chain. Green marketing dates back several decades now, with specialist manufacturers and retailers such as Ben and Jerry’s, the Body Shop and so forth, leading the way.

Green Marketing and Social Networks have discussed the problems related to the idea of greening the world through marketing. The article has discussed that organizations are not running charities and their main objective should be to align their own objectives with that of the protection of the environment. And if it is really delivered the environmental goods will deliver positive results for the organization. The programme already lists quite a few problems with the various environmental targets and actions described by retailers.

David Wigder the writer of Reframing Global Warming across the Political Spectrum provides a different approach towards green marketing from this article. The author says that the green marketers are challenged to efficiently reach consumers and effectively impact their attitudes and behaviors. Marketing Green’s mission is to provide industry professionals with practical strategic marketing advice on how to build green brands and motivate mass market adoption of more sustainable products. Today, there is a common perception that Democrats are more proenvironment than Republicans.

Green marketing and biotechnology (Wikipedia) has provided a relationship between. Biotechnology is often used to refer to genetic engineering technology of the 21st century however the term encompasses a wider range and history of procedures for modifying biological organisms according to the needs of humanity, going back to the initial modifications of native plants into improved food crops through artificial selection and hybridization. With the development of new approaches and modern techniques, traditional biotechnology industries are also acquiring new horizons enabling them to improve the quality of their products and increase the productivity of their systems. Biotechnology is technology based on biology, especially when used in agriculture, food science and medicine.