Modern marketing is consumer-oriented. However, very often, for immediate gains, many corporates surpass the ecological value. Gradually, the importance of ecology is grasped among the corporates in the modern marketing environment. This gave a birth to green marketing which is safe to the consumers and highly profitable to the corporates simultaneously. Thus, a systematic investigation into the emerging phenomena of ecological marketing and the modern corporates' responsibility becomes the need of the hour universally. In this context, the objectives of this study are to present a detailed conceptual framework of Green marketing and its impact on environment, to highlight the Green Marketing initiatives undertaken by the selected modern corporates, encompassing some prominent banking companies, to analyze the benefits accruing out of the eco-friendly responsibilities shouldered by the corporates, and to suggest measures to the corporates to perform better in the context of sustainable marketing.
TopIntroduction
Before we pronounce about Green Marketing, it is appropriate to understand the term ‘Green’ in the context of Green Marketing. Green is the indication of purity. It means pure in quality and fair or just in dealing. For instance, if we talk about green advertising, it refers to advertising without an adverse impact on society.
Thus, Green Products are naturally durable, non-toxic, made from recycled materials or minimally packaged. Of course, there are no absolutely green products, for they all utilize energy and resources and create by products and emissions during their manufacture, transport to warehouses and stores, usage and eventual disposal. Hence, the term, ’Green’, is relative describing those products with less impact on the environment than their alternatives.
Green Marketing refers to the marketing of products which are environmentally preferable to the consumers presumably. In other words, it is the process of selling products and/or services based on their environmental benefits. Such products may be environmentally friendly in itself or produced/and/or packaged in an environmentally friendly way. Green marketing, thus, incorporates a broad range of activities, including product modification, changes to the product process, packaging changes, as well as modifying the advertising strategy. It concerns with three aspects, viz:
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Promotion of production and consummation of pure or quality products,
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Fair and Just dealing with customers, and
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Protection of ecological environment.
However, it is not very easy define ‘Green Marketing’ multiple meanings intersect and contradict each other. Green Marketing is also known as ‘Environmental Marketing and Ecological Marketing.
TopGreen Marketing And Its Origin: Conceptual Framework
The term ‘Green Marketing’ emerged as an important phenomena during the period 1980-1990. In the year, 1975, the American Marketing Association (AMA) conducted its first workshop on ‘Ecological Marketing’. The proceedings of the workshop gave the birth of a book for the first time on Green Marketing entitled ’Ecological Marketing’. The CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility Report) initiated with an ice cream seller Ben & Jerry, supplemented by a greater view on the company’s environmental impact.
Subsequently, in the year 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development defined the sustainable development as meeting ‘ the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need’. Later, it was known as the Brundtland Report which stimulated thinking further on sustainability in every day’s activity.
During the past decade, it was witnessed that harnessing consumer power to effective positive environmental change is far easier said than done. The ‘Green Consumer’ movements in the United States of America (USA) and other country have struggled to reach critical mass and the minds of the forefront shoppers. When public- opinion-polls conducted since 1990 revealed a consistency that a substantial percentage of consumers in the United States confessed a strong willingness to favour environmentally conscious products and companies, consumers’ efforts to do so in real life have remained sketchy at best.
Definitions on Green Marketing
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American Marketing Association: ‘Green Marketing is the marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe’.
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Polonsky B. (1994): Defines Green marketing as all activities designed to generate and facilitate any exchanges intended to satisfy human needs or wants, such that the satisfaction of these needs and wants occurs, with minimum detrimental impact on the natural environment’.
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Pride & Perel (1993): ‘Green marketing, also alternatively known as environmental marketing and sustainable marketing, refers to an organization’s efforts at designing, promoting, pricing, and distributing products that will not harm the environment’.
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According to Joel Makower, a writer on Green Marketing, one of the prominent challenges of green marketing is lack of standards or public consensus about what constitutes ‘Green’. Often, companies are highly reluctant to promote their green attributes whereas consumers of cynical about their claims, as being observed in reality.