Green marketing is a term that has number of explanations and various synonyms. It first present in the late 1980s since after, different classifications has been stated. Green marketing is explained as the meeting the consumer`s wants and needs and managing to cause no or least harm to the environment at the same time (Stanton & Futrell, 1987).
The most common terms that customers perceive when stating green marketing are “Reduce, Reuse and Recycling”. All these terms navigates consumers to green life style, “Reducing” here refers to impact toward environment by reduction of consumption, “Reusing here refers to producing the most, out of product before disposal, and the lastly “Recycle” refers to developing a new product from an old product (Polonsky, 1994).
Definition of green marketing has three fundamental principles; first one is social responsibility which means that business has a responsibility to see the happiness of the society (Peattie, 1995). Second one is holistic approach which means that a business cannot be accomplished as an individual task but rather as an integrated function. And the last principle is pursuit of sustainability, in which companies should be sure to produce products that do not have the negative impact on the environments (Peattie, 1995). Green marketing can be solely defined as the production, promotion and distribution of a product or service which does not cause any harm to environments (Grove, Picken, & Kangun, 1996). According to Charter & Polonsky, (1999), Green Marketing could be defined as the act in which a product could be promoted under environmental principles. Though, Fuller, (1999) considered green marketing as the product impact on environment, throughout the production and distribution stage. Green marketing is not just about marketing products and services but also the marketing pro environmental activities. Green marketing greatest enemy is “Greenwashing” which is defined as companies which claiming conducting environmental friendly process but in reality their products are not environmental friendly and they do not conduct business in an environmental friendly manner. When this occurs consumers will not trust the product or the companies that produce the product, therefore the product will not sell in the market (Ramus, C, A & Montiel, I, 2005). It is crucial for companies when manufacturing green products, not only obliged to manufacture green products but they should also consider quality as well as consumer needs and requirements (Ottman, 2006). According to Grant, (2007) Green Marketing is intended to educate consumers on changing their lives into the more pro-environmental life style. Knowing these terms guide consumers towards a greener life. In spite of the fact that green marketing has been available for many years, not much shift can be realized in consumer’s behavior, there are many explanations for why green products have not been receive by consumers. According to (Grant, 2007) consumers consider green products as more costly and less operative than conventional products. Companies in order to stay competitive need to modify their business exercises to comply with the consumer’s existing needs and wants. This is the main reason the companies adopt a new strategy and conducting green marketing mix.
Courtesy:
Md. Nur-Al-Ahad
MBA (UPM, Malaysia), Visiting Scholar (UoM, Japan), BBA (University of Dhaka, Bangladesh).
Lecturer in Finance
Department of Entrepreneurship
Daffodil International University
Daffodil Business Incubator Building
105 Shukrabad
Dhanmondi, Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh
