Introduction
The state of our environment and the increasing consumption of its natural resources have become of growing concern to the earth’s population. This issue is attributed to our contribution towards global warming through the emission of greenhouse gases; our pollution of the environment; and our booming population growth complemented by the increase in per capita consumption (Anderton, 2007; Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 2008). All of the above have had environmental impacts which include, amongst others, the degradation and depletion of natural resources; climate change; natural disasters and even detriment to human health (Khan & Ghouri, 2011).
As a result, there has been a global need to avert this situation. Consumers have responded to this by being environmentally conscious in their purchasing decisions and buying environmentally-friendly products (Laroche, Bergeron & Barbaro-Forleo, 2001). They have increased their consumption of green products, which have in turn increased the focus on green marketing. Green marketing is the development of a marketing mix which caters to a specific target market who desire products/services which are environmentally friendly (Priebe, 2010).
The following assignment attempts to shed more light on the trend of environmentalism and the concept of “going green”. The assignment begins with a brief historical overview of the trend of environmentalism; followed by the consumer behaviour of the group and the factors which affect the
assuage any guilt they might feel about consuming mass quantities of unnecessary, disposable goods by dutifully tossing these items into their recycling bins and hauling them out to the curb each week”. (Westervelt, Amy. "Can Recycling Be Bad for the Environment?" Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 25 Apr. 2012. Web. 5 Dec. 2015). So why is the reason that companies are starting to “Go Green”? Its clearly obvious that the change in America from an industrial country to a environmental country has taught big business how to market environmentalism in mass quantities of their product. The strategy of the consumption-environment mindset are increasing rapidly. If this trend of buying without thinking does not slow down, with problems like not shifting priority from consumption to being environmentally aware, things will certainly worsen. On the topic of green marketing, people often see that green marketing refers to the advertising of objects or products with environmental characteristics to them (Like the Nestle bottle, for example). Terms like “Environmentally Friendly”, “Refillable”, and “Recyclable”, are some of the things people associate with green marketing. In reality
The Marketing process is made up of simple concepts that involve lots of research on the part of the marketer. The process begins with understanding the consumer, without knowing what consumers need or want, it would be extremely hard for firms to both develop and sell a product. Knowing that consumers want more green products due to growing environmental concerns is a very important detail. Needs and wants are what fuel consumer purchases and marketers must perform research in order to best serve their customers. Through this research, marketers are led to the next step of the process and can now develop a customer driven marketing strategy. Here, the firm must decide how it will differentiate its product from others on the market.
The rise of green products and the want of consumers to become more environmentally friendly has been increasing. In 10 Green Marketing Milestones, the reading mentioned how the “rise of the Toyota Prius: It may not have saved the world, but at 1 million cumulative vehicle sales the Prius became the predominant fuel-efficient hybrid vehicle” (Neff 2). This is an example of how companies are actually wanting to go green in order to make more profit and rise above their competitors. Going off the Prius example, it was also mentioned how Hummer cars, which use an excess amount of fuel, sales have plummeted. This was because this model no longer appealed to the consumers and General Motor’s had to discontinue the model and even went bankrupt. This sale tactic works and is so successful because the consumer’s mindset have evolved to seek things that are better for the environment. Many would prefer Toyota over General Motor because of their company’s reputation with being green. Although this might not work for all companies, but for some, they have become more successful than their competitors by going green and so, convincing more and more to
-Initiate and implement the ‘Go Green’ project to promote the sustainability features of our products to customers
As more and more people are aware of environmental problems which our human being are facing, most people nowadays do shopping with some degree of morality in mind, taking social or environmental issues into consideration as they select from a range of product or services. Therefore, the concept of
Sustainability has achieved a more ecological tone in the past few decades in terms of a business model, but it originally derives from the concept that a business is successful due to the interconnected areas of economics, culture and ecology. Sustainability is now becoming a somewhat fad and thus it is understandable that it could be misconstrued by some as a form of “greenwashing”. Greenwashing is the idea that a company markets their “green” or environmentally friendly changes in policy and values, despite no actual concrete changes in these areas, for example some argue that Fiji Water greenwasher in terms of their marketing as an environmentally friendly water company despite their little effort to actually go carbon-neutral. Many companies are seeing the
Think green! Eco-friendly product! These slogan are often used for items being advertised in the green marketing campaigns. Green marketing is the advertising of products that stated they were safe for the environment. Products were changed to be part of the green marketing movement from changing formulas, packaging process, and advertising them. When the products were advertised to consumers they used images of foliage, the color green, and other images of nature. This appealed to consumers who wanted to have a positive impact on the environment. However, the green marketing was not only to reduce waste and pollution into the environment, but as well for the minimizing and simplifying the way of living for people. The consumers who would radically change their way of living often relocates somewhere where nature is more abundant than in the city. Additionally, materialistic people would
In the article “Are You Being Green Washed?” Robbins (2008) states the image of “greenwashing” which is that numerous number of companies promote their services and their products as environmentally friendly but in reality it is harmful for the environment. The author illustrates that by giving some example of companies that claim they are eco- friendly such as Palm oil and Rayon. He states the impacts of such claim on the environment and consumers in some ways. However, in order to protect the environment form the negative impacts of globalization and consumerism, government and individual must make a joint effort by enact laws and educate people and companies about the impacts of such problem.
On your weekly trip to the supermarket it’s easy to find a number of products, from coffee to dishwashing soap, that flaunt their green attributes” (American Psychological Association, 2010). With such rumors of greenwashing, consumers are more confused than ever. However, some consumers know the tricks and are coming to find that there are companies whose marketing practices are legit, not exaggerated or deceiving. APA also found that, “people are willing to spend more of their hard-earned green on green products, according to a 2008 survey of 9,000 adults performed by the global business firm Boston Consulting Group” (American Psychological Association, 2010). Consumers who are willing to pay more for a product or service are assuming that they are purchasing a healthier, safer, and better quality product or service for the environment.
In the business world, companies compete for the lowest price because they want consumers to purchase their products. If consumers buy them, corporations generate money. Companies don’t care about the methods to obtain the lowest retail price for their products. They will do it even if it means that companies have to degrade working condition, paying worker less, or even ignoring regulation and unloading harmful waste straight into the environment. However, in recent times, more and more people are joining the “conscious consumerism” movement. People start to favor products and companies that are environmentally and socially friendly. This also propels the idea of “conscious capitalism”, which when companies choose to follow a path that can bring benefits to both the people and the environment. Some companies respond to conscious consumerism by producing more environmentally friendly products, while others respond by “greenwashing” their products and themselves. “Greenwashing” is when Companies start to shine their spotlight on their green side and hide their destructive and unpleasant side. Greenwashing is an easy way for the companies to associate themselves with an image of environmentally responsible and “conscious capitalism”. However, companies shouldn’t be allowed to “greenwash” their products because it prevents conscious consumerism from moving forward and harms the environment even more.
Climate change. A phrase that encompasses a vast wealth of information, the totality of which is difficult to fathom let alone concisely elaborate upon in a condensed format such as a course or writing assignment. Through this course, the interconnectedness with which humans influence the balance of climate change is abundantly clear. Ecosystems plants and animals depend on are all connected and influencing one another but these scales are imbalanced, mostly as a result of human activities. The web of interconnectivity in climate change is complex, but there is a reemerging consensus at it’s core that human actions, such as global development, has major ramifications and the health and welfare of people and the environment are paying the price. Those daring enough to say they aren’t influencing climate change haven’t truly examined the many facets of their lives consuming energy and in turn increasing carbon emissions that alter climate. For most, transportation is a necessity. This usage requires energy consumption, most likely in the form of fossil fuel resource depletion and in turn the generation of carbon emissions. Transportation routes by land or sea may alter ecosystems that further elevate carbon emissions. With an understanding that the topic of climate change and carbon emissions is massive at best, the aim of this assignment will be to provide the reader with a basic understanding of greenhouse gases and carbon emissions and the relation to climate change. A
In today’s day and age, everyone is concerned about the environment. Our society is increasingly encouraged to “go green,” to do our part in making the world a cleaner, more eco-friendly place. Green marketing is one major strategy being used to promote such efforts, but is it effective? There is some debate about this concept, including the history of green marketing, the problems with green marketing so far, the effectiveness of marketing schemes like Sunchips and Toyota, and the strategies that could be used to increase the ability of green marketing. While protecting our planet is a noble concept, its execution seems to be a little vague. Of all the aspects concerning green marketing, one thing is clear: our planet still has a long
“Modern humans deeply influence the form and function of the ecosphere” (Hugget et al: 2004). During the twentieth century alone the world’s population increased from 1.65 billion to 6 billion and just now the worlds population stands at over seven billion. The rapid growth rate of the human population means that there are now many environmental problems such as pollution, deforestation, food and energy shortages, waste, water storage and climate change. These problems have meant
We, as humans, have always had a prevalent impact on our environment and our world as a whole. Not only has our societal presence caused negative global impact, but our expedited population growth has also had an extreme physical impact on earth. An example of the effects of our extensiveness is, “…86% of the world 's resources are consumed by only the wealthiest one fifth of humanity…” (globalissues.org). this means that 4/5ths of the planet already has limited access to resources that are naturally found on earth. In addition to our excessive consumption of the earth natural resources, environmental degradation is the result of extreme pollution and wastes that have made their way into our atmosphere. Because of our severe impact on nature, it is crucial that we stop the accelerated deterioration of our environment by decreasing our misuse of earth’s natural resources, reducing the use of unnecessary technology in our environment and practicing more ecologically responsible lifestyles. This “can help protect the environment and sustain its natural resources for current and future generations” (thrall.org).
According to the green consciousness, the current consumer presents a pyramid structure, namely the consumer ignoring of green occupy the majority, mild green consumer place in the middle, the depth green consumer occupy minority. 2.2 From the aspect of enterprises Many enterprises are not cognizant of the opportunity and the threat brought by the new market in which green need and green marketing is very popular, which causes the green marketing only to be able at a lower level. It is expressed in the following: (1) Partial enterprises ignore the environmental protection and disregard the social responsibility. (2) About the understanding of the green breadth, many enterprises thought narrowly the green marketing only is food, the electric appliance, the building material and so on. (3) About the understanding of the green depth, the enterprise sticks to the product stage, that is, the green value is just to pursue the profit which the green product brings. 2.3 From the aspect of environmental protection NGO Environmental protection NGO overseas is the starting strength for green marketing development. It directly exerts