Eco-marketing is a responsible corporate behavior which considers the issue of environment protection as a development and growth opportunity of the company and pushes it through in all activities of operation (Coddington 1993). Eco-marketing focuses on environmentally friendly products and services, trying to broaden their market share and making business success of them.
Sustainable consumption is defined as “the use of goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants over the lifecycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations” (Ofstad 1994). It is not about consuming less, but about consuming differently, efficiently, and having an improved quality of life (UNEP 1999).
The challenge of sustainability makes a broader view of consumption and lifestyle change necessary; therefore the shift from ‘eco-marketing’ towards ‘sustainable consumption’ concept is inevitable.
Main questions:
• Which are the main features of consumer society?
• What is in the focus of eco-marketing?
• Is eco-marketing able to solve the problem of resource depletion, over-consumption, degradation of the earth, climate change etc.?
• Which factors are necessary for a sustainable future? How is consumption affected by this issue?
• What is in the focus of sustainable consumption (SC)?
• Which are the preconditions to make SC feasible and effective? What are the barriers?
• What are the most important tools to push sustainable consumption through in modern societies?
July 29, 2009 by Brian Butler | Filed under: Moving from Eco-Marketing to Sustainable Consumption [4] | No Comments »
Please follow the link below to view a powerpoint presentation on “What Corporations Could Do For Sustainable Consumption”, moderated by Professor Sándor Kerekes.
May 20, 2009 by Brian Butler | Filed under: Moving from Eco-Marketing to Sustainable Consumption [4] | No Comments »
Moving from eco-marketing to sustainable consumption discussed several factors that are currently impeding the jump to sustainable consumption. It was generally agreed that people find consumption to be a fundamental right of the individual. It was even discussed that many people find consumption to be a fun activity. Low cost / affordability is a driver towards consumption along with marketing practices.
Consumption to meet an individual’s primary needs to health and safety is necessary. Beyond the primary need consumption is based on satisfying desires or wants. Surprisingly this over consumption to satisfy wants does not correlate to overall happiness. Data was presented that revealed increasing financial wealth has an asymptotic relationship with happiness. This suggests that if companies could move towards providing services versus materialistic products we could improve overall happiness. The impact on employment was discussed and remained an unknown. Companies will need to be given alternatives to help with this migration.
One of the most critical areas to address to enable sustainable consumption is the education of the youth. It is important to offer lifestyle choices to individuals and perhaps a rating/labeling system that allowed the consumer to understand the product’s environmental impact would be a critical element for choice. Perhaps a green tax would work? Alternatively, we could change the paradigm of status symbols to view sustainability as the envious lifestyle to be copied by others rather than materialistic consumption. For example, why would you want to have a manicured lawn requiring endless attention when you could have a thriving ecosystem similar to a forest in your yard?
It was unclear at the end of the workshop as to what role if any the environmental manager would play in changing individual consumption behaviors. Do they really have enough influence/impact on decision making? Further exploration will be required to see if a toolkit can be developed to empower the environmental manager in this area
May 7, 2009 by AROMAKE AFIEGBE and | Filed under: Moving from Eco-Marketing to Sustainable Consumption [4] | 1 Comment »
This article considers the potential of the discipline of marketing to contribute to consumption reduction from a social marketing perspective. The authors review the difficulties of applying conventional marketing theory and practice in pursuit of more sustainable consumption, and the logic of applying an adapted form of social marketing to promote more sustainable lifestyles and reductions in consumption. This study also uses a health-oriented social marketing campaign to demonstrate the potential of a social marketing approach to address ingrained forms of consumer behavior and to successfully ‘de-market’ products.
May 7, 2009 by AROMAKE AFIEGBE | Filed under: Moving from Eco-Marketing to Sustainable Consumption [4] | No Comments »
We argue that social marketing, a strategy that uses techniques from corporate marketing to
influence the behavior of target audiences, is a useful framework for thinking about motivating
people to enact environmentally sustainable behaviors. We critically examine some pervasive green
applications through the lens of social marketing and discuss how we might study various
persuasive factors encouraged by social marketers in these domains and in our own research.
May 7, 2009 by AROMAKE AFIEGBE | Filed under: Moving from Eco-Marketing to Sustainable Consumption [4] | No Comments »
Teaching sustainable marketing practices requires that curricula advocate a “triple bottom line” approach to personal and marketing decision making, emphasizing requirements for a sustainable lifestyle, company, economy, and society. These requirements include environmental/ecological stewardship (maintenance and renewal of “natural capital”), social stewardship (equitable distribution of resources, human, and community well-being), and economic stewardship (valuing financial continuity over profit). In this article, the authors suggest how marketing educators might incorporate these sustainability principles into marketing pedagogy. Toward that end, the authors (a) offer a formal definition of the term sustainability, (b) examine the current role of sustainability in marketing strategy at the firm level, (c) present a brief history of academic literature relevant to this topic and review current initiatives at academic institutions, (d) offer resources for integrating sustainability into marketing curricula, and (e) propose and describe the implementation of an MBA-level marketing elective dedicated to the topic of sustainability.
March 16, 2009 by Brian Butler and John Morelli | Filed under: Moving from Eco-Marketing to Sustainable Consumption [4] | No Comments »
The objective of the workshop is to highlight the main issues and patterns connected to eco-marketing and to sustainable consumption and to discuss why is this shift between them necessary, how is it justifiable and how would it be feasible.
The structure of the workshop is planned to be the following:
Expectations regarding the participants are:
· Considering the most important issues to discuss, based on the topics listed above and on the experience and opinion of participants.
· Willingness to actively participate in the discussion and to find effective solutions for realizing sustainability in consumption. I think of the elements of communication campaigns, the identification of responsibilities and competences, giving lifestyle change options, demolishing institutional and individual barriers to make sustainable consumption possible, etc.
· Participation in drafting a conclusion.
Moderator: Dr. Agnes Zsoka
